Police widen scope in NFRA maize probe
Inspector General of Police Merlyne Yolamu says police will widen its scope of investigation into the K112.5 million missing maize saga at the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) .
The country’s top cop indicated this in Lilongwe yesterday when she led her team to appear before the Joint Parliamentary Committee investigating the disappearance of 13 trucks carrying maize from the Northern Region to NFRA strategic grain resrves at Kanengo in Lilongwe.
She appealed to all people with information on the transactions under probe to provide details to police.
“Police is going to widen the scope of investigation as regards to information that is coming out,” Yolamu said.
But she told the committee that since the issue is under investigation, police will not, at this point, divulge more information to avoid compromising the probe.
Preliminary police investigations established that Kachere Agriculture Trading managing director Smolet Kachere instructed the company’s operations manager Lucky Singini to sell NFRA maize to pay for fuel of transporters it subcontracted.
A team of police officers led by Yolamu told the committee that the maize was sold to foreign nationals in Chitipa District and that the commodity was taken across the border.
The team also informed the committee that eight people, namely Kachere, Singini, Joseph Mhlanga, Lloyd Msiska, Yakobo Bando, Fumbani Nyirongo, Dominic Chunga and Wiyane Studu were arrested in connection with the missing maize.
Earlier yesterday, the committee resolved not to hear from Kachere as the matter was in court.
However, in an interview with The Nation, Kachere alleged that the information coming out about his contract was meant to conceal the rot about the maize issue.
The committee co-chairperson Nicholas Dausi refused to comment on the matter.
Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Irrigation chairperson Sameer Suleman on Monday said he received reports that 4 600 metric tonnes of maize has gone missing, but NFRA officials expressed ignorance on the quantity. They said they were only aware of 375 metric tonnes that went missing under Kachere Agriculture Trading.
