I’m sure Zamba has something to say
They always come in waves. The other week it was about fertiliser import deals. An abattoir (of all companies) had been given K750 million out of a K30 billion deal to import fertiliser. Then before Malawi government officials knew it, the UK-based butchery chickened out. Now, government is struggling to get back the money. Government has been spending millions on top of the K750 million sending the Attorney General to Germany to repatriate the money. Our money? I cry for my country.
Last week, it was the resignation and dismissal waves. National Oil Company of Malawi (Nocma) deputy chief executive officer Hellen Buluma resigning from Nocma or purporting to do so and Nocma board chairperson Colleen Zamba, who is also Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC), removing Buluma from Nocma. You could not tell which of the two started. Both Buluma and Zamba claimed they had not seen the communication from each other. Never short of drama. Who was fooling who?
And this week has seen another wave. Again, about Buluma. She has volunteered tonnes of allegations from her time at Nocma and her relationship with the Nocma board chairperson. And about others. Most of them very incriminating. Grateful to the Parliamentary Appointments Committee (PAC) for providing the platform through which Buluma dressed down her former boss, Zamba, for allegedly interfering with Nocma’s fuel importation contracts awards.
This reminds me of some people who have fallen victim to similar shenanigans before. Former Energy minister Newton Kambala, Aford president Enoch Chihana and former presidential aide Chris Chaima Banda come to my mind. Previously, what Buluma alleges Zamba has done by trying to influence Nocma to award a fuel contract to some companies, would have been hot material for the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to deal with. For that is how Kambala, Chihana and Chaima Banda found themselves answering corruption charges. The matter is still in court where the same Buluma is the key State witness. Tongues are wagging kuti waponda mwala (I don’t know how to translate that). But over a year and a half down the line, same circumstances, same incriminating statements have got different responses. Buluma should have been consistent. I have a strong feeling the accused will have the last laugh. And it is the taxpayer who will feel foot the bill.
I digressed.
The point is that what we have heard from Buluma is obviously only one side of a long and winding story. It surely is not a complete story from her. She told PAC the side that best suits her narrative at this point in time. And she seemed to have acquitted herself very well before PAC largely because of the flat and flattering questions PAC members put to her. The full picture will emerge when Zamba also gets to be heard. She too may have a bomb of a story. It will be another wave. It behoves PAC which has started it all to ensure that it brings Zamba before it as soon as possible.
While we are on Nocma, what happened to the fuel importation contracts for two companies which were said to have expired at the end of September 2022? These are some of the issues PAC should have asked Buluma to explain. The companies are Lake Oil Limited and Camel Oil (T) Limited. In August 2021, the two firms signed deals with Nocma to supply and deliver into the country 100 000 metric tonnes (MT) of 54 820 MT of refined petroleum products, respectively, from Beira and Nacala in Mozambique and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. And when will new contracts be advertised?
But thank God the week was not all about Buluma fighting her former boss. It has not all been about delayed distribution of the Affordable Inputs Programme. Against desperation on the part of government, some good news filtered in from the International Monetary Fund Executive Board that it had approved $88.3 million in Emergency Financing Support to Malawi. The money approved under the Food Shock Window of the Rapid Credit Facility will help Malawi address its urgent balance of payment needs. This is sobering news which should help calm our nerves
With Steven Nhlane
She told PAC the side that best suits her narrative at this point in time. And she seemed to have acquitted herself very well before PAC largely because of the flat and flattering questions PAC members put to her
