MP Chakwantha claims DPP hiding ‘real’ audit report with perpetrators of K577bn looting
The chairperson of the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament, Peter Chakwantha, has accused the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of hiding a comprehensive audit report by PricewaterHouseCoopers (PwC) with names of those suspected to be at the centre of the plunder known as K92bn DPP-era cashgate.
Chakwantha claims government has two versions of the report, one which is a data analysis titled ‘Final Analysis Report: Reconstruction of the Malawi Government Cashbook for Purposes of Further Investigation’ and another which has names and details of what happened to payments amounting to K577 billion (US$1.3 billion) that are shown in bank statements, but cannot be traced in Capital Hill’s cashbook.
“One is the data analysis and the other is the real forensic audit report done by the PwC South African team. Now the government has chosen to feed Malawians the data analytic report version so that we all think that this is all that is on the table,” said Chakwantha.
Chakwantha lamented the mafia-like operation of the DPP to sweep under the carpet names of the culprits.
“Malawians we are trying our best but you voted us in minority and the numerical strength by our colleagues is now working to your disappointment. Wonder why we always vote for crooks in Malawi,” Chakwantha took his frustration on Facebook.
“I am still pushing for the forensic report and not this fake Reconstruction of Cashbook report,” said the MCP lawmaker.
He also said media is not playing its watchdog role effectively on the matter, suspecting that some journalists have been “bought”.
“They are asking us for interviews on daily basis but end up giving us blackouts next day in their papers,” he pointed out.
The data analysis has revealed there were deliberate efforts to delete important data from the system and specifically mentioned the following suspicious actions as “red flags” requiring further investigation:
Suppliers created on one day but deleted either the same day or the following day
- Payments created and deleted on the same day;
- Invoices created and deleted on the same day;
- Vouchers created and deleted on the same day.
To arrive at the unaccounted for K577 billion, PwC says it analysed 1 788 295 bank statement payments between January 1 2009 and December 31 2014 and matched this against the total number of payment entries on the cashbook, which were found to be 1 007 075. Thus, 781 220 transactions were not accounted for in the Cashbook.
PwC, hired by the German government to work with the Auditor General’s office, assigned two teams—one from South Africa and another from the Malawi office.
Auditor General Stephenson Kamphasa said the analysis had identified significant discrepancies between payments made from government bank accounts and cashbook records held in Ifmis.
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