India company denies contract link with Atupele: Smear campaign
An Indian woman named Saritha Likkakula (Khrishna) has denied signing on behalf of Sai Balaji Enterprise worth 137 000 euros (about K72 million at the current exchange rate) with United Democratic Front (UDF) presidential candidate Atupele Muluzi, who resigned as Economic Planning Minister.
Nation on Sunday newspaper reported that Atupele and Saritha signed the contract which the ministry disowned as illegal because the controlling officers were not party to the deal .
However, Saritha emailed a statement on Sunday dismissing the story.
“I have never signed a contract with Atupele Muluzi as the Minister of Economic Planning and Development,” she stated.
Muluzi also denied knowledge or existence of a contract between himself and the Indian media company.
Sources say the document leaked to the newspaper is the work of “forgery” and part of the “smear campaign” against opposition presidential challengers to the incumbent.
The said documents purportedly signed by Atupele and Saritha on June 12 2012, endorsing a contract for Sai Balaji Enterprise to do “a report on Malawi” in the French magazine Le Monde.
Joacquim Lanthier a representative of Le Monde in Africa also clarified that there no deal signed by anyone.
“No one put pen to paper on the contract,” he said.
