Mphwiyo family issues hand-off plea to Malawi media
The family of the shot budget director Paul Mphwiyo on Wednesday issued a statement appealing to the general public and the media, to respect his right to privacy and dignity .
Mphwiyo, was shot on the night of September 13 this year at the gate of his house, a development that later led to one after another of shocking revelations and arrests in what has been christened to cashgate scandal.
In a statement made available to Nyasa Times, the Mphwiyo family requests that the media should stop bombarding him with phone calls of interviews and let him recuperate peacefully.
“We, the members of the immediate and extended Mphwiyo family wish to inform the general public, and more particularly, the media in Malawi, that in the wake of the shooting of Paul Montfort Mphwiyo on Friday, 13 September, 2013, our family has endured a lot of stressful and traumatising days,” the statement reads.
The Mphwiyo family says while the general public is entitled to information, Paul Mphwiyo and the rest of the family are also entitled to the right to privacy and human dignity, especially during this time of the former budget director’s recovery.
“In this regard, we request members of the media to desist from making persistent telephonic calls to Paul requesting for an interview with him. These calls are exacerbating Paul’s condition and are counter-productive to his recovery.”
But although there will be restrictions of who Mphwiyo will be meeting or talking to, it is an obligation that the Budget Director meets the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, which has already met some key officials relating to the matter, some of them being the immediate past Finance Minister, former Secretary to the Treasury, Accountant General and the Chief Secretary to the Government.
Following the cash gate scandal which has seen Malawi losing billions of kwachas, some high profile ministers have lost their cabinet posts while others arrested with several civil servants in police custody
The general perception out there is that the cashgate scandal involves ‘big fishes’ who are being shielded and the rest of the arrests and action plan is but a charade to hoodwink cooperating partners on the crackdown to corruption.
Already, one of the key suspects in the shooting of Mphwiyo, Pika Manondo has vowed to spill the beans on the cashgate heart of the matter.
Manondo currently on remand at Kasungu police, is facing persecution following his interview with Nyasa Times where he said he will chronicle the way money was being looted and sent to State House.
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