Questions and more questions on Cashgate

Honourable Folks, when Cashgate was exposed following the shooting of former budget director Paul Mphwiyo on September 13, 2013, government appeared to have appreciated that the damage to its image was enormous and regaining the trust of the taxpayer, donors and investors would require a business-as-unusual approach.

Donors immediately froze budgetary support—which constituted 40 percent of the budget—and said they would consider resumption only after the culprits are brought to book and the gaping holes in public finance management system are sealed.

In other words, in the eyes of the donors, government incompetence made Cashgate to happen. It’s a view echoed by the business captains. In anger, they threatened through their mother body, the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, to hold back their tax money unless government was serious about using every tambala for its intended purpose.

Initially, government responded in a reassuring manner. All its arms—Executive, Legislature and Judiciary—went to work to catch the thieves and bring them to book. The Judiciary made available judges and the Executive provided special funding to expedite the process of bringing the culprits to book.

On its part, Parliament instituted a probe to establish how a fairly complicated process requiring a nod at several checkpoints could be beaten to the extent that millions of government funds ended stashed in the boot of vehicles or inside the belly of Mickey-mouse dolls when hospitals had no drugs and schools had no learning and teaching materials.

The impression created was that Cashgate  was a scandal of crisis proportions requiring urgent attention. Yet, it’s now a year and what’s there to show for it? Only one concluded case of Tressa Namathanga Senzani, former Tourism PS, who swindled the government of K63.5 million.

How long will it take to conclude the cases of the other people already arrested in connection with Cashgate? How about those on the list British forensic auditors, Baker Tilly, have submitted to government? Justice Minister Samuel Tembenu hinted in Parliament recently the list includes big fish from the previous regime, saying they should not accuse government of witch-hunting when they are arrested.

Yet, not even their names have been disclosed yet! If there are 40 suspects to prosecute, and a case takes one year to conclude, then it may take 40 years or more to conclude Cashgate cases!

How long will Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe and his team take to seal what Mark Lowcock, permanent secretary for Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID), described when he visited Malawi last month as government’s “leaking bucket”?

During the administration of Bakili Muluzi, the Ministry of Education was rocked in a scam in which ministers, senior government officials and contractors drew over K180 million from government for  construction work at various schools throughout the country. It turned out that people got paid for work that wasn’t completed or not done at all!

Typical of a rotten system, not a single minister (save for one or two that had fallen from grace) was dragged to court. As for the others, their cases became the chameleons of the judicial process, making one step forward and another backward, taking their time to change colours or stick their long tongues out to catch whatever other political or business opportunities they could get from the same government.

Those that raised eyebrows were told that everyone is presumed innocent until proved guilty by the courts.  And so, suspects died or joined the party in government until the scam died.  Will the Cashgate die too?

Baker Tilly probed what happened between April and September 2013 and established that within those six months alone, over K20 billion may have been lost through cash-gate. What happened in the other 18 months of the JB administration?

How much was stolen from government in the eight years of Bingu wa Mutharika’s administration and what will happen to the culprits?

Unfortunately, it seems that Cashgate to those in government is all about the period Baker Tilly probed. That will enable them to get at the previous administration with a befitting Molotov cocktail. It’s not political witch-hunt, they say.