Ntaba testifies how he saved Mphwiyo’s life:  Malawi  ‘cashgate’ shooting case

Prosecution on Tuesday paraded Dr Hetherwick Ntaba to testify in court in the shooting case of Malawi’s former Ministry of Finance budget director Paul Mphwiyo.

Mphwiyo was shot on the night of September 13 2013 at the gate of his residence in Lilongwe’s affluent Area 43 residential estate

Ntaba  was called to the hospital on the night of Mphwiyo’s shooting and gave life-saving first aid treatment.

In his testimony, Ntaba demostrated to court how he managed to stabilize the spining gas that gave his patient
difficulties in breathing but he was quick to state that he is yet to establish the assailants .

Ntaba said if he had not inserted a laringostope at the back of Mphwiyo’s throat against struggles and gasps for breath, he would have died.

He also told the court that the entrance wounds of bullets indicated that Mphwiyo was shot three times.

The gun-shot survivor told the court, presided over by Justice Michael Mtambo, that two bullets hit him in the mandible and another went through his shoulder to his chest. One bullet was removed in a South African hospital but two others – lodged in his spinal column – will remain inside the 38-year-old for the rest of his life.

Mphwiyo’s shooting unravelled ‘cashgate’ and the resultant discovery that up to US $30 million was minted from the government payment system, where politicians and businessmen colluded with civil servants for payments for goods and services not rendered to government.

Soon after Mphwiyo’s shooting millions of cash in Malawi kwacha, US dollars and South African rands started pitching up in unlikely places like in car trunks, baby dolls, under beds or in pillow cases.

Hearing continues.