Police, Malswitch fraud: Kachikuwo, Kambona suspended
A multi million kwacha fraud investigation at the accounts department of Malawi Police has seen its head Elijah Kachikuwo interdicted and an employee of Malawi Switch Centre Limited (Malswitch) has also been suspended in connection with the same case, it has been reported.
Kachikuwo is also chairman of Blue Eagles FC a police sponsored Super League club and has been nominated for the position of Football Association of Malawi (FAM) vice president.
According to National Gazette(www.nationalgazette.net), Inspector General of Police Peter Mukhitho confirmed the suspension of Kachikuwo and two other officers identified as a Mr B Mwansinga and a Mr Chandema.
On the other hand Malswitch Chief Executive Officer Gideon Kalumbu confirmed the suspension of Peter Kambona, a senior systems analyst.
Mukhito says he believes there is “a racket” involving the central bank employees and some civil servants.
“There are some boys from Accountant General who were using our accounts and several other government departments’ accounts for fraud activities,” Mukhito is quoted saying.
“This was happening especially during the time of funding. If, let’s say, Treasury says we should be funded K50 million, these boys will credit our account with another K50 million and take it back. There is a system that we are using where cheques are cleared electronically, so to do this, one has to have a password to the computers, so we don’t know whether our officers were doing this knowingly or not,” said the police chief.
“That’s why a decision was made to let them go on leave and we call the people managing the system to check what was happening,” said Mukhitho.
It was reported that the suspects had substantial amounts of money in their bank accounts.
Quoting the source, the report said the case is connected to the K400 million fraud case at the Accountant General.
More arrests are likely.
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