A pro-DPP company is one of the two companies that have been awarded multi-million kwacha contracts by the Tonse Alliance-led government allegedly without following procedures, a whistle-blower has revealed.
The whistle-blower, Yamikani Kachingwe, alleges on a Facebook post that the companies were awarded the contracts soon after the owners held an audience with President Lazarus Chakwera as part of the Youth Summit held on 13 August 2020.
He claims the two directors attended the summit despite the fact that they do not qualify as young people.
“One of them was the reason Engineer Alfonso Chikuni was fired (rather redeployed) at Lilongwe waterboard to Ministry of Agriculture because he refused to award a contract to his company” claims the whistle-blower in a 20-paragraph post.
He alleged that the CEO ganged up with a personal aide of the then President Peter Mutharika and rained unpalatable insults on Chikoni prior to him being fired.
“Chikuni refused as the company had no capacity. Immediately Chikuni was redeployed”, he alleges in the 291-word post.
Despite lacking the capacity, Mr Kachingwe says the company has been awarded a fatty cheque by the Tonse coalition government to drill boreholes by one of the water boards through a procedure that smacks of corruption.
He also alleges another company whose CEO attended the summit on 13 August also walked away a contract.
“This very company has been awarded borehole construction contract under Tonse Government not DPP Government. And another person who attended the Youth summit has been awarded a contract at ESCOM as well”.
Kachingwe questions the credibility of procedures employed in awarding the contracts.
“Not sure if the tenders were advertised in newspapers. But the point is that,these guys went to meet the president not as youths but to pitch their business plans/proposals. And today they have won tenders.”
In a related development, Kachingwe has called on President Lazarus Chakwera to suspend contracts at Central Medical Stores where he claims only three companies are getting multi-billion Kwacha tender through shoddy procedures.
He claims the system was utilised by the previous regime to loot public funds. Kachingwe warns that retaining the procedure is likely to dent President Chakwera and his second in command, Saulos Chilima in their quest to root out corruption.
