It is disappointing that the Tonse Alliance administration has started war against those who have patriotically spent their energy to fight corruption.
The pathetic development that the ardent whistleblower, Gregory Gondwe, has gone into hiding in an unknown country for fear of his life after he has unearthed dubious transactions between a United Kingdom (UK) based business magnate, Zuneth Sattar and the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) whose Commander-in-Chief is His Excellency the State President Reverend Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera.
For starters, how can President Chakwera enter into deals with Zuneth Sattar when the Attorney General, Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda, advised the nation that he had cancelled all Sattar’s deal. No wonder it appears that Sattar has captured all Malawian public sectors.
Currently, Vice President, Saulos Chilima is on bail answering charges that he received a bribe from Sattar to influence the government to offer him a contract.
Surprisingly, when Saulos Chilima was asked to take plea on the case, he insinuated that he was not alone and he suggested that presidential immunity should be removed.
For sure, Vice President Chilima knew something which most Malawians didn’t know.
The documents exposed by Gregory Gondwe substantiate that the Commander-in-Chief of MDF, Dr. Lazarus Chakwera, knew the dubious purchase of 32 armored personal vehicles.
Will President Chakwera prove Saulos Chilima right by hiding behind presidential immunity?
Is it not hypocrisy of highest order for President Chakwera to stop delegating duties to his Vice President when he himself is secretly involved in dubious deals with the same business icon, Sattar? Who is fooling who?
Flashback a bit, Malawians heard President Chakwera promising the Director General of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), Ms Martha Chizuma, to support and protect her. However, just months later, Ms Chizuma was arrested early in the morning while she was in her sleeping suit.
As if that was not enough, the Secretary to the Office of the President and Cabinet swiftly wrote her a letter of her dismissal though it was later withdrawn.
Was president Chakwera not aware of Chizuma’s arrest and dismissal when he is the Commander of the Malawi Police Services and Armed Forces?
Is there any political will by the current regime to crackdown on corruption when it is quick to threaten whistleblowers like Gregory Gondwe? Obviously, the Tonse Alliance government is not serious enough to stamp out corruption because it is swift to arrest corruption fighters such as Martha Chizuma.
On the other hand, why are the courts protecting corruption suspects such as Kezzie Msukwa from being prosecuted by the ACB while Vice President Chilima is now being quizzed from left and right on bribery charges. Is this not selective justice?
Why is the Secretary General of the ruling Malawi Congress Party (MCP), Mr. Eisenhower Mkaka, being cushioned from being prosecuted by ACB when there are sufficient allegations that he dubiously benefited a Mercedes Benz from Sattar, the embattled businessman who is answering bribery charges both in the UK and Malawi.
If Tonse Alliance administration takes Malawians for granted, they will be surprised when they find themselves outside government in 2025.
We still remember the campaign days during which Chakwera and Chilima begged us to vote for them so that corruption could be history in Malawi.
Now that they were voted into power, instead of combating corruption, they have become perpetrators and promoters of the same cancerous vice.
Worse still, they have vowed to deal with those who voluntarily fight corruption. It is not being clever to fool Malawians just like that. In fact, it smacks of a political suicide.
Tonse Alliance can fool some Malawians sometime but they can’t fool all Malawians all the time. We are eagerly watching and following you.
In conclusion, we implore ACB to devise means of protecting whistleblowers. Otherwise if they are being persecuted, then the battle against corruption is already lost.
Furthermore, we highly recommend that talented whistleblowers like Gregory Gondwe should be roped in as state witnesses. We will be heartbroken to lose such talents.
Lastly, a warning goes to perpetrators of corruption that even if they threaten Gregory Gondwe from revealing the evils of corruption, they will be taken by surprise when they see many Gregory Gondwe’s emerging from nowhere to stamp out the vice.
