No wrong doing, Malawi Attorney General claims after ACB questioning
Malawi Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale has stressed that he is not in the wrong after the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), reportedly sought to find out if any abuse of office after the K150 million government paid to a client of a law firm he previously owned.
“My conscience is clear. I have not exerted any influence in the payments and these payments started before I was appointed Attorney General. I do not personally handle such matters
“I am no longer managing the company since I was appointed as Attorney General and such matters are being handled by Mr. Ted Loka. Again at the ministry in the matters that I have interests such as this one, the chief legal advocate and the senior deputy chief advocate or even the solicitor general as a general player handle such issues,” said Kaphale as quoted in the Nation on Sunday.
According to the newspaper report, Kalekeni Kaphale Lawyers’ legal firm settled out of court a dispute government had with its client M and I Building Enterprise who were accusing Malawi Defence Force of defaulting payment on a construction contract in 2010.
Government agreed to pay owners of M and I Enterprise and Three Rivers Trading contractors the money as part of the settlement and the sum included payment for the work conducted plus accumulated interest and legal fees for the lawyers.
Kaphale told the paper that the AG’s office has no interest in how payments should be made, saying there are no records indicating he had a hand in any of the payments.
He said: “I did nothing wrong.”
The AG explained that government is now paying several people it owes huge amounts of money and suggested that the ACB interest could have resulted from a Finance Intelligence Unit’s (FIU) rapid response of issuing an alert for any payments rising above the K1 million threshold.
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Malawi government will fire you and compensate you to the fullest under one President then the next will hire you until you retire. If you look at it seriously the people being fired and hired are from the same belt (enriching one another).
Financial scandals involving fraud and corruption seem to be so prevalent and a way of life in my beloved country-malawi.aren’t you pple ashamed of yourselves.ndalama zimenezo zikuphani,simuzitha.talk of immorals,you suck!
The issue is that when Ralph Kasambara was holding that office, Ralph and Arnold law firm, which was managed by him before becoming AG was benefitting a lot from these kids of settlements and people from all over cried bloody murder and accused Ralph, rightly or wrongly, of doing corrupt deals. Today, bwana kaphale is doing the exact same thing and his defence is that my office doesn’t handle these matters. He says there is no evidence that I was not involved. That’s the line he is taking? shame. We need integrity in the office of the head of the… Read more »
There are so many law firms in Malawi currently pushing the govt for for payments in arrears on behalf of their clients. In fact most of arrears that govt are now issuing discounted papers to people who are owned money, 90% if not more, are working with law firms to chase for their payments. Now that payments have started streaming there is nothing wrong for any law firm to receive their payments on behalf of their clients. This is a process that the Min of Finance is in control and flowing according to its plans. The Attorney General’s office is… Read more »
‘…those matters are handled by Ted Loka…’ , how does he know the operations management in a firm which he is no longer party to – sitinati a Malawi, kulila nkosatha.
smoke rises where there’s fire
hehehe haters, wadabwa umphawi wangokuphani, phokonyole wanuyo mumafuna akugulireni wina musovambo, mulira kuti ntoooo mufa osauka mukamalimbana ndi anzanu kuleka kumalimbikira mwamulira kuti ntooooo
These lawyer are thieves and even the way Katopola was speedly awarded raises suspicion if you find out who was representing her and what is the current position of his lawyer. ACB should not just accept this explanation as there is more to it than meets the eye.
“My conscience is clear?” you mean that is adequate defence! YOUR conscience, what is that to us? I thought justice should not only be done but should BE seen to be done? If you were a professional worth his salt you would not have accepted that position! It compromises your integrity especially during this cashgate era where you were representing some of the thieves. I mean seriously how can you in the blink of an eye claim to be facilitatating the prosecution of the people you were defending! Does this practice called law have ethics? I used to respect the… Read more »
Someone here is calling Kaphale a morally upright man . Ha, ha, ha . Do you really know Kaphale? Do you really know this SDA drunkard? Muziyamba mwafufuza kaye before making conclusions about people .