Malawi mafia state: Dausi implicated in K577bn cashgate documents theft, ballot arson

Malawi is now a ‘mafia’ state as National Intelligence Services officer are now making revelations that government is behind organising and funding some of the criminal attacks for political reasons, saying chief spy Nicholous Dausi has the knowledge of all the attacks.

State spies who are sources of Nyasa Times have revealed that Dausi, apart from using a Mr Liwonde of the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) to leak documents -including fake ones – in order to smear people, commandeered the operation of the burglary into the house of a high-ranking German official handling the K557 billion forensic audit.

“The GTZ attack was state sponsored. The state spy agency masterminded the operation,” said a very credible source at intelligence services.

German Ambassador Peter Woeste had suspected the burglary was politically motivated to defeat justice.

“Thieves were pretty naive. Everything we know about the audit have been published. There is no hidden information anywhere,” he said.

The German envoy warned that the politically inspired gang culture may put Malawi on a dangerous road if government may miss the opportunity to take decisive action.

Germany, through its international cooperation wing, GIZ, is technically and financially supporting the K577 cashgate audit, which is being carried out by auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC)—focusing on financial mismanagement in government between 2009 and 2013.

Dausi has however denied his involvement as “unnecessary aspersions”, saying “there is no substantive evidence” linking him.

He said: “It is unsubstantiated; it is wrong, incorrect, fallacious, illogical and spurious.”

Dausi has also been implicated as mastermind of the mysterious fire that gutted a Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) warehouse in the capital, Lilongwe, reducing to ashes electoral materials worth millions.

The warehouse – situated in Area 4 along the Paul Kagame Highway in the heart of the city – was housing ballot boxes at the centre of a parliamentary result dispute in which an opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) candidate has sued MEC for a recount of the ballots whose official tally after the May 20, 2014 elections declared President Peter Mutharika’s governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate the winner.

“They used the owner of the shop next to the warehouse and went through the roof to petrol bomb the warehouse,” said the source.

The source said the spy chief need to concentrate his energies on the security breakdown in the country as part of his key roles in collaboration with the Malawi Police Service.

“Elsewhere, the intelligence people play a crucial role in National Security issues not bringing confusion between the government and the church. Dausi’s job is in National Intelligence and that cause for an intelligent person. Otherwise, we need to rename the NIB to NGB – National Gossip Bureau,” said the source.

But Dausi said: “Don’t just make speculations out of paranoia.”

He continued: “That’s not true, freedom of the media on lies, speculations, conjectures and innuendos, no that’s senseless, thoughtless and lackadaisical .”

The purpose of the MEC warehouse arson was to defeat evidence of vote rigging, Nyasa Times understands.

People’s Party (PP) of former president Joyce Banda, accused Mutharika and his DPP of rigging the polls by tampering with the figures.

Banda, Africa’s second female president who eventually came third in the elections, attempted to annul the entire electoral process but the courts ruled that she did not have such overriding powers.

On his part, Rev. Lazarus Chakwera, the cleric-turned-politician who came second to Mutharika as MCP candidate, went to court to fight for a recount of the presidential ballots.

Although the courts ordered the recount, the exercise was turned into an academic one as the electoral body had to recount some 5 million votes within two hours to beat the eight-day deadline by which it had to release the elections’ results.

With the crucial ballots up in flames in the Lilongwe incident, any recount order may also be rendered academic since there will be no ballot to recount as Malawi does not have an electronic back-up for ballots.

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