Mutharika wants corruption probe into road construction tenders
Malawi President Peter Mutharika has ordered graft busting body, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to probe ward councillors who corruptly award road construction projects to their own companies or those of friends.
Mutharika said most of newly constructed roads in towns and cities are in dilapidated state just six months after they were rehabilitated.
“The roads are in bad in shape because of poor worksmanship. The councillors or their friends have no experience whatsoever in road construction.
“The honourable minister of Local Government should look into this, the ACB must investigate this thoroughly and bring to book the perpetrators,” said Mutharika.
He was speaking in Mulanje when he launched Malawi Rural Electrification Program (Marep).
“This has to stop. The government is wasting a lot of money rehabilitating the roads,”the Malawi leader said.
Some road projects in Blantyre, Lilongwe, Zomba and Mzuzu have stalled, others are taking unnecessarily long to complete while those that have been completed have, shortly after completion, started developing potholes, cracks and other problems.
Roads Fund Administration spokesperson Masauko Ngwaluko recently said as is the case with every road project in city road construction and reconstruction works, his organisation retains five per cent of respective contract sums so that they can be used to rectify defects on the roads.
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come and fire us at RA Mr President if you can!!
Mr. President
It is not only councilors who are doing this. Even those working at Roads Authority are giving themselves and their cronies contracts at the expense of well qualified and established contractors. In most cases they don’t use their names in the contracts but those of their relatives or friends. There is a lot of corruption and fraud at roads authority. Thorough investigations at this institution will shock the nation.
The Maselema/Zomba road is very dangerous. I have witnessed 5 deaths in 6 months. Also the Kamuzu Highway we see an accident almost every day.
Ma Councillors ena okuba adzadza ku Zomba. Mbuli zosapita ku school koma kufuna kuba basi. ACB ku Zomba simapita khaya chifukwa chani? Most of these people are not educated up to JC level basi enanso mpaka PSLC. Ngati JC is abolished, why still keeping JC Councillors in the Councils? Raise the standards up to at least MSCE mwina adzitha kumvetsa what is required of them. Malawi at 52 koma dziko losauka.
I 100% support you Mr president the roads are so bad.
There is too much roadsgate going on in this country.
Kkkkkkk yes the president does not order the ACB to investigate anybody,what he has done is to order the ACB to investigate the procedures of awarding contracts to contractors..educate me if I have missed the presidents message.
The President knows better than us so he shouldn’t cheat us on issues of corruption.
All along the President has maintened that he does not give orders to the ACB.
That’s true Mr President..we Malawians we r failures because of corruption..it’s very sad for the country to lose a lot of money for the corrupt contractors..every new road is in bad sharpe and this contractors must be taken to court ,coz that s killing, that’s our tax money. The minister responsible for the roads must also taken to task , am sure they must know something
If I remember correctly, the minister of Information, Mr Nicholas Dausi recently said the president does not order the ACB to carry out investigations on anybody. This was in response to Lazarus Chakwera’s call on the president to order the ACB to investigate DPP ministers. What has Dausi have to say on this now? Dausi, as usual, was on MBC TV attacking Chakwera over the issue.