Govt pounces on more cashgate
The prosecution in Cashgate cases continues to recover millions of kwacha lost through the scandal, the latest being K2.1 million (US$4 444) belonging to convict Victor Sithole.
If successful, according to special prosecutor in Cashgate cases Kamudoni Nyasulu, government will have so far recovered K220 million (US$488 889) from the K24 billion (US$53.3 million) that the Baker Tilly forensic audit found was siphoned from government within six months from April to September 2013.
The recovered money represents just under one percent of the six months era loot and amounts almost nothing if the K92 billion (US$204.4 million) that is suspected to have been stolen between 2009 and 2012 is brought into the equation.
Nyasulu made an application on Friday claiming K1.4 million (US$3 111) which Sithole used from Cashgate money to buy grain produce and K750 000 (US$1 667) that he used to pay house rentals in Area 47.
According to Nyasulu, he told senior resident magistrate (SRM) Patrick Chirwa that the court had agreed that the money was proceeds from the crime of theft and money laundering for which Sithole has been sentenced to nine years.
“We want to recover money that he [Sithole] gave to middlemen to buy maize amounting to K1.4 million [and] the K750 000 he used to pay rent. If he cannot pay this money we want to take Whispers Bar, which he owns,” Nyasulu said.
The State has also attached Sithole’s Area 25 house to the claim.
SRM Chirwa asked the lawyers to make written submissions in support or opposition of the application giving Sithole’s lawyer Ralph Kasambara to respond by March 17.
From Sithole, the prosecution already seized K112 million, $31 850 and R122 250, which is in the custody of the Reserve Bank of Malawi.
The prosecution has so far secured six convictions and has recovered K63 million from former Ministry of Tourism principal secretary Tressa Namathanga who was sentenced to three years imprisonment and K14 million (US$31 111) from Maxwell Namata who was sentenced to eight years imprisonment.
Meanwhile, the High Court in Lilongwe is on Tuesday expected to hear an application for confiscation of K40 million for which businessperson Wyson Zinyemba Soko was convicted and sentenced to seven and a half years for theft and money laundering.
The brazen ransacking of Capital Hill, which appears to have started in 2005, has had a damaging fiscal impact on the country.
Donors—angry at the systematic looting of public funds by a cabal comprising some businesspeople and some civil servants—withdrew budgetary support.
With donors accounting for nearly 40 percent of Malawi’s national budget, Capital Hill has found itself in a huge budget deficit that runs into hundreds of billions of kwacha of the K770 billion revised national budget.
As a result, government has struggled to finance its operations, including payment of salaries to civil servants while the development budget, at least 80 percent of which was coughed by donors, is barely ticking.
