Former president Peter Mutharika received a donation of 2 400 bags of cement from a Mr. Chunara through his personal bodyguard Norman Chisale, court records show.
This is contained in a statement the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) recorded from Mutharika on August 12 2021 in Mangochi.
The statement is also part of disclosures in Criminal Case number 2 of 2022 Revenue Division in which Chisale, alongside former chief of staff Peter Mukhito and former MRA deputy commissioner general Roza Mbilizi are answering charges of abusing Mutharika’s taxpayer identification number (T-pin) to import cement worth K5 billion duty free.
Mutharika, the presumptive nominee for President under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said in the statement the 2 400 bags of cement were delivered in four consignments of 600 bags each.
Reads the statement: “After the issue came through the newspapers, Tadikira informed me that there was a consignment of 2 400 bags delivered in four consignments, which were sourced by Mr. Norman Chisale through a donor named Chunara.
“According to Tadikira, the cement came in four trucks of 600 bags each. However, I neither talked to the donor nor thanked him.”
In the witness statement, Mutharika has also disclosed that he used his own money to procure 16 750 bags of cement for seven of his housing projects that he carried out between 2014 and 2020.
According to the statement, 3 500 bags of cement were used for his retirement home, identified as the Mangochi project; 500 bags for a project in Balaka which run between 2014 and 2017; 2 000 bags for a fence at Mapanga and two uncompleted house projects in 2017; 700 bags for Nyambadwe ‘boys’ quarters project in 2019; 3 850 bags for a 2019 project in Area 43 and Tchoda hostel project near Malawi University of Science and Technology in Thyolo; and 2 400 bags for houses at Six Miles.
“The total bags of cement used in all these projects is 16 750. Apart from the said donation of the 2 400 bags that I came to know about after the newspaper article on cement, we bought the cement for all the projects mentioned, including Tchoda over the six-year period using our money. No bag of cement for the projects was imported duty free,” further reads the statement, which also has some receipts attached to show proof of payment.
Mutharika also indicates that Chisale was one of the people that were supervising the projects as he had no time to monitor progress of the same.
His stepson Tadikira, who is an engineer, was also involved in buying building materials and supervising the project.
“As regards to the contract/agreement between myself and Mr. Chunara, I would like to state that I do not know him and there was no contract/agreement between Mr. Chunara and myself regarding importation of duty-free cement. I have never met Mr. Chunara; neither do I know him,” reads the statement.
The Nation broke the story on the alleged abuse of Mutharika’s T-pin about a week before the court-sanctioned fresh presidential elections on June 23, 2020.
On July 24, 2020, Mutharika issued a statement in which he said he neither bought nor instructed anyone to buy or import the cement that authorities said was bought using the former president’s T-pin while he was in power and that he did not know the Chunaras.
In the statement, the former president stressed that he only came to know about the issue after a reporter from The Nation called his press secretary Mgeme Kalirani to enquire about the importation of duty free cement for a story.
Besides MRA, Fiscal Police also recorded a statement from Mutharika and the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) attempted to do so in 2021, but postponed the mission. It is not clear if they managed to do it later.
The case against Chisale, Mukhito and Mbilizi is ongoing, with the State currently presenting evidence.
Three weeks ago, MRA deputy director of ICT risk and cyber security Wilson Upindi, who was part of the team that searched Melton Hardware in Lilongwe belonging to Ahmed Muhammad Chunara to investigate a case of tax evasion, presented his evidence in court.
Chunara was a suspect in the case, but he later became a State witness.
Upindi’s testimony focussed on how MRA extracted data from Chunara’s phone to help lead in the investigation of tax evasion.
