ACB denies Clearing JB
The Anti-Corruption Bureau has denied clearing former president Joyce Banda in Cashgate, the plunder of public resources at Capital Hill exposed under her watch in 2013.
ACB director general Reyneck Matemba said in an interview on Monday the graft-busting agency never cleared Banda on her alleged involvement and wondered where she got the information that she was cleared.
He said: “That is not true. This is news to us. In fact, when we heard her saying that, we wondered where she is getting that information. You can even check the records from a media briefing we had on January 15 in Blantyre. We never said we have cleared the former president.
“The evidence that we [ACB] have is based on statements that were made by Leonard Kalonga, the late Treza Sensani and [Oswald] Lutepo. We are still following up on those allegations. I don’t think that is clearance.”
Banda, who returned home on Saturday from a self-imposed exile in United States of America and South Africa, told a rally in Domasi, Zomba, on Sunday that the ACB and International Police (Interpol) cleared her and that she is clean.
But Matemba said the ACB was still investigating Banda, both on the role she played in Cashgate and Mudzi Transformation Trust, an initiative which was aimed at providing good shelters, access to potable water, accessible transport as well as ensuring food security and nutrition to the less privileged Malawians which she established in May 2013.
In a separate interview yesterday, Banda’s spokesperson Andekuche Chanthunya maintained that the ACB cleared the former president during its January media briefing.
He said he was surprised with the sudden turn of events by ACB, saying the bureau is doing this because Banda is in the country.
Efforts to speak to Interpol officers in Malawi to verify if Banda was given a clearance certificate proved futile as they referred The Nation to National Police spokesperson James Kadadzera who refused to comment.
Kadadzera, however, maintained that a warrant of arrest for Banda was still valid. He could, however, not comment on why no arrest has been effected to date.
Registrar of the High Court of Malawi and Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal Agnes Patemba could not specifically comment on the validity of the said warrant, but said she recalls that police obtained the document to arrest Banda some time back.
The shooting on the night of September 13 2013 of former Ministry of Finance budget director Paul Mphwiyo outside the gate of his Area 43 residence in Lilongwe led to revelations of the plunder of public resources at Capital Hill.
Banda ordered an audit which British firm, Baker Tilly, undertook covering a randomly selected six-month period between April and September 2013. The audit established that about K24 billion was siphoned from public coffers through dubious payments, inflated invoices and goods or services never rendered.
In May 2015, a financial analysis report by audit and business advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) also established that about K577 billion in public funds could not be reconciliated between 2009 and December 31 2014. The K577 billion figure was later revised downwards to K236 billion in another forensic audit released in 2016.
During Cashgate cases relating to the plunder of K24 billion under her watch, some of the accused civil servants, who were eventually convicted, alleged her involvement in the scandal. n
