Malawi activist demands probe on Bingu ‘allies’: They aided wrongful self-enrichment

A Mzuzu-based rights activist has called on President Joyce Banda government to thoroughly investigate close allies to  late President late Bingu wa Mutharika reported to have amassed K61 billion while in office, arguing that they were involved in aiding the ‘wrongful self-enrichment’.

Mutharika, at the time of his ascendancy to the presidency in 2004, declared that he had K150 million worth of assets but true to accusations  prior to his death  that he had amassed worthy dubiously,  he ended up amassing assets amounting to K 61,350, 437, 237. 62.

And according to the preliminary assessment of his estate, the figure could be higher as  the former president had accounts in more countries than earlier reported.

Speaking to reporters in the northern city of Mzuzu,  Moses Mkandawire, who leads the National Integrity Forum and sits in as director for Church and Society in the Synod of Livingstonia said “an individual can’t amass such wealth single-handedly.”

Comments on social media platforms and interactive  Malawi online newsite Nyasa Timeshave satirized that since the current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leader and 2014 torchbearer, Peter Mutharika a brother to late president,  has repeatedly said during mass rallies that he will continue from where his brother [Bingu] left, it means that he will also continue with the controversial accumulations of wealth.

Mutharika died of cardiac arrest  on April 5 last year.

Mkandawire said officials who were close to Mutharika – most of them in the current government – could have aided the late president in siphoning the public funds.

“If those who were close to the late president and other civil servants can be thoroughly investigated there can be overwhelming evidence on how the finances were siphoned,” he said.

A  working file of  Yeremia Chihana of YMW Property Investment Limited and Registered Property Evaluator , contracted to assess Mutharika’s real estate, shares and stocks, bank balances, chattels and other assets, late Mutharika also had assets in Singapore, Australia and Isle of Man.

The files show that in Singapore, Mutharika had an account and three houses; in Australia, there are two presidential flats and a bank account while in the Isle of Man, there is a bank account.

When Mutharika was alive, Nyasa Times reported about the presidential flat in Australia, linked to Paladin  the uranium miner in Karonga, Malawi. The report was vehemently denied.

According to the  report, the Isle of Man account was used  by late Mutharika frequently.

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