Malawi President Peter Mutharika and Minister of Homeland Security, Nicholas Dausi, will be direct beneficiaries in a clandestine deal in which some Indian-owned companies are claiming 53 billion Kwacha from government over a non-performing contract to supply Police uniforms signed five years ago.
Yesterday, the Nation newspaper reported that African Commercial Agency and Reliance Trading are claiming K53 billion from the Malawi government. The 11 figure amount is five times more than the K9 billion contract amount which the company signed five years ago to supply uniforms to the Immigration Department.
While their demand to milk the taxpayers comes despite the fact that the goods were never supplied, our source from the DPP has revealed that an agreement has been made to ensure that President Peter Mutharika and Nicholas Dausi directly benefit as a condition for the deal to go through.
The agreement, says the source, draws inspiration from how President Mutharika pocketed K145 million in cash and a multi-million consignment 5 brand new cars from another Indian business person, Zameer Karim.
“The DPP is currently on a serious drive to raise money for campaign, and it is trying every means possible to siphon money from the public coffer.
“After discussing with APM on how this would be done, Homeland Security came up with an idea to review some contracts five years after their non-performance to see if they can come up with something out of them.
“It was then agreed that Dausi will instruct some suppliers to sue and claim billions from government over contractual technicalities so that they are paid through out of court settlements,” said the source.
The source also added that people must not be fooled with talk of government ‘fighting’ the claims in a court of law because that is a mere gimmick. Facts on the ground, according to the source, there is no intention to defend the claims in any court of law.
“Imagine these are claims that are over five years old. Why resurface now? The framework is the same as it happened with Zameer Karim: Government will quickly settle the matter out of court and the K53 billion will be shared between the suppliers and Mutharika.
“A substantial sum will be deposited in Mutharika’s bank account under the DPP just like they did with the K145 million. Dausi is also expected to get a substantial cut from the deal as the architect who has engineered the whole scheme”.
The source added that there is so much pressure on the DPP to raise campaign money following a realization that the party is fast losing a lot of political ground to other political parties like Saulos Chilima’s UTM ahead of the May 21 tripartite elections. It is also believed the ruling party has failed to penetrate new grounds.
“President Peter Mutharika is not happy with some top gurus within the DPP because he feels they lie to him when they tell him everything is okay and that DPP will win the May 21 General Elections.
“This follows a recent survey which the ruling party secretly commissioned to gauge its popularity ahead of elections. The survey has revealed revealed that Mutharika is actually a distant third from Chilima and Lazarus Chakwera in popularity and with APM’s prospects of retaining power swiftly vanishing,” said the source.
This, added the source, is the reason why the amounts being claimed are astronomical and in billions.
“Apart from the fact that DPP is desperate and would require more resources to cling on to power at all cost, Mutharika and his friends within the DPP are also looking for their last pay cheque because they are now painfully aware that they are living their last days in government. This is their way of making hay whilst the sun is shining,” added the source
Asked why then has government decided to challenge the case, the source claimed that was part of the scheme the ruling party is playing to hoodwink the public in order to fend of any suspicion of foul play.
“Government move swiftly to challenge the case before activists could zero in to fend off any suspicion that Mutharika will also benefit from the lot. Abdul Karim Batawarara [owner of African Commercial Agency and Reliance Trading] has been assured of the tricks at play saying the case will be thrown out of Court. Judges have already been shopped as there is overwhelming evidence that the ruling party has several judges under its armpits to sit on cases like these”
In August last year, Mutharika said there was nothing wrong with the K145 million ‘bribe’ which was sent to a DPP account that has his name as the sole signatory. The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), in a leaked report, said it could not indict Mutharika on the K145 million donation because the law bars any criminal charged leveled against a sitting president.
