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Cloud over Atupele contract saga

Jooma: The woman has disappeared
Jooma: The woman has disappeared

Malawi Government agencies have contradicted one another on the supposed probe into allegations that former minister of Economic Planning and Development Atupele Muluzi illegally signed a K72 million (US$171 837) advertising deal with an Indian firm.

While the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development (EP&D) says the matter is in the hands of law enforcers, the Ministry of Justice and Malawi Police Service (MPS) say they are not dealing with the issue.

Last November, Nation on Sunday ran a story based on documents alleging that an Indian media company, Sai Balaji Enterprises, signed the deal with Muluzi to help Malawi woo investors from India into the agricultural industry.

The contract—in which the Indian firm was expected to write a favourable economic report for Malawi in French newspaper Le Monde to promote the local agriculture sector’s investment opportunities—was set to run between July 12 and August 30 2012.

Other documents also showed that the company—through its representative Saritha Likkakula—was pressing EP&D to pay for the international marketing services.

In August 2013, Likkakula wrote the ministry’s principal secretary Ted Sitimawina asking for the payment, stating that it was long overdue.

“We had signed an advertising contract and interviewed Mr Atupele Muluzi for the editorial section of the report. We have fulfilled the requirement and completed our job and made a complete report and submitted it to the government. We were promised to be paid by August 17 2012, so we left the country,” she wrote to Sitimawina.

But in an interview in November, Sitimawina said the agreement between Muluzi and the media company was illegal.

Sitimawina explained at the time that Muluzi sidestepped controlling officers in signing the contract. He said the ministry referred the matter to the Office of President and Cabinet (OPC) for further action.

In an interview on Thursday, Minister of Economic Planning and Development Ralph Jooma said the matter was still in the hands of the police who are trying to trace the woman who was coming to the office to make the K72 million claims.

“The police are trying to track down the woman, they cannot trace her, she has disappeared,” he said.

But police spokesperson Rhoda Manjolo said on Tuesday that police were not involved in the matter relating to the ministry’s contract and that there is no investigation into the issue.

“Maybe try ACB,” said Manjolo.

ACB spokesperson Egritta Ndala had not responded to our questionnaire when we went to press.

In a separate interview on Tuesday, Minister of Justice Fahad Assani said no government law-enforcing agency was investigating Muluzi and that the matter does not exist officially.

“We have never instituted any investigations against Muluzi. We can claim that we are investigating any matter when it comes from ACB or police; otherwise, that issue does not exist. Not to my knowledge,” he said.

In November, Muluzi denied knowledge or existence of the contract between himself and the Indian media company.

Muluzi challenged: “Tell them to show you the contract.”

The alleged contract, which we saw, quotes Muluzi as endorsing the agreement.

Reads the contract in part: “I, Mr Atupele Muluzi, hereby agree and come in contract with Sai Balaji Enterprise which would be honoured by August 30 2012.”

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2 Comments

  1. No smoke without fire. Zoyamwira izi. The deal has to be pursued and whosoever benefitted from it must give an account of what exactly transpired. In any case this was an inside job and mind you that time the boy was in good books with Jezebel so much so that she was aware of it. In one of the articles Joyce Banda has come out openly and put records straight by saying that Malawians have all along entrusted their country in the hands of illiterate ministers who can not even write their own name on a computer, not surprising that Ken Lipenga was just blurting in parliament because he was totally ignorant of the figures he was singing about. The illiteracy standards eminent from the leadership. If the head is rotten the body follows suit hence all that thieving, a free for all looting involving people who were not in any of the Government Departments – the country’s businesses were managed on “Auto-pilot”, which was very unfortunate and scary. Koma chiongolero chache ndiye cha ngolo ya ku Mponela’tu, nanga tidziti ndi cha galimoto ngati?

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