Despite Malawi endorsing the Declaration of Assets Act following reports of plundering government resources, President Peter Mutharika‘s ministers are reported to have defied the act by not declaring their assets to the office of the director of public officer’s declarations.
According to reports, Malawi’s finance minister Goodall Gondwe, minister responsible for Agriculture and Water Development George Chaponda, and Minister of Sports Grace Chiumia are yet to submit records of their assets a month after the deadline for receiving the records passed.
The law requires public officers to submit their assets to the office of director of public officer’s declarations and then update the records every financial year.
That deadline passed on July 31 but the three ministers are yet to provide the details of their assets. The penalty for failure to declare assets before the July 31 deadline is dismissal from office.
Though Mutharika and his vice Saulos Chilima are among the people said to have updated their records, it remains cloudy on the whereabouts of the assets that the president and other public officers declared last year.
Following the massive plunder of government resources, Malawi passed the Assets Declaration Act through Parliament in 2014 to track all government officials as one way of ensuring that government resources are secured.
In 2015, Mutharika, according to the declared wealth, owns property that he has attained in Malawi and also in the United States of America where he was working a lawyer before he came into Malawi politics and made it to the Presidency.
The assets show that Mutharika has: (By March 2015)
Savings in US: K3,600,000,000
Local account: K63,000,000
Foreign Account: K112,372
Nyambadwe House: K7,000,000
US House: K337,000,000
Nine vehicles: K397,000,000
Area 10 Houses.
All these properties total to MK 4.4 Billion (US$9.2 million).
