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Public inquiry on Bingu wealth

On the fifth anniversary of the sudden death of former president Bingu wa Mutharika, the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament yesterday resolved to open his estate to a public inquiry slated for July this year.

The resolution follows a meeting the committee held with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIU) and the Auditor General who provided an update on progress made into the investigation of Mutharika’s wealth.

Late President Bingu wa Mutharika

Committee chairperson Alekeni Menyani said the agencies had left them with little option, but to call for a public inquiry where all stakeholders in the matter would make submissions to the committee after both the ACB and FIU failed to make progress on investigations on Mutharika’s wealth valued at K61 billion by a private valuer which the Peter Mutharika administration disputes.

In his concluding remarks to the hearing, he said: “The committee is not a court, but we cannot be going around in circles like this. We simply want to know if public resources were used in the build-up of this wealth.

“We will be calling the administrators of the estate, Interpol, Fiscal Police and any other stakeholders in this matter to get to the bottom of it.”

The resolution came after several of the committee members questions to the ACB director of investigations Dan Mponda yielded little results.

Mponda declined to concede that his institution had failed to investigate suspected criminal elements in the Mutharika estate.

Mzimba North member of Parliament (MP) Agnes Nyalonje wondered if the investigations were worth continuing considering that it has been four years since they were instituted and ACB has not received any feedback from the Department of Justice of the United States of America followed by a blue notice to Interpol in March 2014 to assist the ACB in tracing the former president’s bank accounts.

Auditor General Stephenson Kamphasa pleaded for patience as cross-border investigations could take many years to conclude.

It is estimated that Mutharika held accounts in local and international banks with funds amounting to K34.9 billion with real estate worth K37.2 billion.

In 2004, Mutharika declared to the Speaker of Parliament that his wealth was K150 million.

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