Cashgate property seizure left in police hands—DPP

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Bruno Kalemba has said the seizure of property, including houses and vehicles belonging to people suspected to have taken part in the massive theft of public resources at Capital Hill is in the hands of the police and other law enforcing agencies.

In an interview on Thursday, Kalemba said after successfully obtaining seizure warrants for property suspected to be connected to Cashgate, his office left the task of executing the warrants in the hands of the police.

He said this when asked what assets government has since confiscated after obtaining the seizure warrants.

“My office gave the court an application about the seizure of assets connected to Cashgate and the court issued the warrants which were sent to police and other institutions.

“Therefore, my office has left everything in the hands of the police to act,” said Kalemba.

But Kalemba earlier expressed optimism that government would recover about 80 percent of the funds plundered from the public purse by a syndicate of civil servants, politicians and businesspersons, some of whom have been arrested.

National Police spokesperson Rhoda Manjolo on Thursday referred Weekend Nation to chairperson of the police investigation committee on Cashgate Nelson Bophani to comment on the matter.

Bophani said he did not have the information about the assets off-hand, saying one needed to go through files to comment properly on the matter.

“There are many seizure warrants which we have received. We need to go file by file,” said Bophani.

The seizure warrants come at a time there is growing public interest that government should also concentrate on recovering the billions stolen from the public purse by confiscating all houses, vehicles and other properties which were bought using cashgate spoils, apart from prosecuting the culprits.

Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Fahad Assani earlier said the recent profiling of civil servants’ property revealed that they own massive property including 90 percent of the houses in the affluent suburbs such as Lilongwe’s Area 23 and 47.

 “According to information provided by the Ministry of Lands and Housing, 90 percent of 43 and 47 are owned by civil servants.

“These civil servants have no mortgages and cannot afford those houses on their salaries,” said Assani.