Controversial Member of Parliament for Rumphi East Kamlepo Kalua who is also third Vice President for opposition People’s Party (PP) for the North has trashed Auditor General Stephenson Kamphasa for defending President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika on seven Cabinet Ministers implicated in the MK237 billion cashgate scandal, saying he was acting under duress.
Kamphasa on Wednesday called for a media briefing in the capital Lilongwe to clear the mist hovering the social media that Mutharika is shielding seven Cabinet Ministers implicated in the cashgate by withholding the report.
In his speech, Kamphasa said none of the reports or files is implicating any Cabinet Ministers but rather Business persons.
Writing on his official Facebook page, Kalua has quashed the claims, saying Kamphasa’s body language on national TV indicated clearly that he was acting under pressure.
“For those of you who listened to the AG on national TV, clearly from his body language he was acting under DURESS, he said after noting several anomalies with the files, they were advised not to publicise NAMES and he says there are NAMES of business persons and “not” cabinet ministers and since there were issues of fraud they decided to send the files to relevant law enforcing agencies like ACB.
Now I have a few questions ; 1. Does this mean that he agrees with me that there are names? 2. Are ministers not business persons? I am sure what they have is not in-line with salaries in the civil service. 3 Who advised him not to release the names? 4. Do u think Billions of Kwacha were stolen by ghosts? 5. The AG further says the names in the files are for suppliers none of which are senior government officials, are u sure ordinary Malawians have got the ability to swindle billions of Kwachas without help from senior government officials?,” wondered Kalua.
He added: “I revealed to the country about the Tractors that were disposed off dubiously and others said Kamlepo is joking until evidence came up, I revealed that the state house had purchased a Motor home and this was dismissed by the state house spokes person and two days later he admitted that they bought it but cheaper than I had said.”
Kalua said all this is so because of the absence of the Access to Information Bill which government t keeps dodging it in Parliament.
“Now to my fellow Malawians, those files contain evil deeds by men and possibly women you elected or are I’m high positions , the deeds are evil whether the culprits are from your tribe, party or region. Imagine what two hundred billion can do in your district, region or country. For how long are we going to tolerate this?
“My heart bleeds when people look at this on regional lines and according to their districts of origin…let us move away from regionalism and start looking at Malawi as a country. I REPEAT, 7 MINISTERS ARE IMPLICATED, and a time is coming when Malawians will say “Enough is enough”. The truth shall come out!,” added Kamlepo.
Preliminary audits of government finances between 2009 and 2014, carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and financed by the German government, indicate that at least K577 bn. ($807 mn.) could not be accounted for.
Later, the estimated loss was reduced to K236 bn. ($330 mn.), still a gigantic figure for such a small country, about one third of the government’s annual budget.
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