…Mutharika punishes whistleblower for lifting lid on a K40 billion fraud
Kondwani Nankhumwa has been identified as one of the rotten cabinet ministers that Malawi President Peter Mutharika is protecting from the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).
The evidence that Malawi24 has seen reveals that President Mutharika is sitting on a K40-billion fraud report that fingers out Nankhumwa as the perpetrator. The president has so far punished the whistleblower.
According to the evidence, published by Times, Nankhumwa conspired with the then deputy commander of the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) Griffin Supuni Phiri to procure 500 vehicles for the MDF without following procurement procedures.
The whistleblower, Ignacio Maulana, then serving as the Army commander, reported the two to Minister of Finance and Economic Development Goodall Gondwe and the ministry’s Secretary for Treasury Ronald Mangani.
Maulana was thanked for his patriotism to stop corruption by being fired by President Mutharika who is currently protecting other cabinet ministers implicated in the K580 billion cashgate scandal.
Supuni-Phiri, one of the suspected culprits, was repaid handsomely by being promoted to take up Maulana’s position. While Nankhumwa, previously locked together with President Mutharika on treason charges, is still in the cabinet.
Running under the headline ‘Procurement of ammunition and vehicles for Malawi Defence Force’, the memo says Nankhumwa and Supuni made an arrangement to procure vehicles for MDF yet the matter was not discussed anywhere within MDF.
The paper claims that MDF is in contract with SF International for the supply of vehicles. Ironically, SF International is also not clean as it has been named in another cashgate report compiled by Baker Tily.
“I pointed out that arrangement to procure vehicles for Malawi Defence Force by the Minister of Local Government, Hon Kondwani Nankhumwa MP and Deputy Defence Force Commander, Lt Gen GS Phiri from Ashok Leyland was never discussed at any MDF and/or MOD management meetings. The statement by Hon Nankhumwa on the issue, while devoid of truth was also misleading and very unfortunate,” writes Maulana in the memo reference number CQ/206 that Times has cited.
When the newspaper contacted them, Nankhumwa and Supuni Phiri laughed off the claims. Supuni Phiri said there is no way an arrangement to procure anything for the MDF can be done without the knowledge of the Army Commander while Nankhumwa said MDF does not report to the Ministry of Local Government, suggesting that he was not involved ordeal.
This DPP is worse shaaaaaa
As long as this criminal are being protected by the govt itself,corruption wl never end in Malawi still holding the poverty flag
APM z doin his own principle not for wat we elected him to do.hw cn he protect criminals lyk dat ?lec wet and c
Let them, for they don’t know what is following them. This is the genesis of the end of DPP.
Poverty in Malawi is a man made engineered by Malawians themselves mostly politicians and government officials. There is no need to blame something else.