Blantyre, Malawi, March 11 (MaraviPost) Malawi’s official corruption-busting body, the Anti-Corruption Bureau, late Monday arrested former Army Commander General Henry Odillo and his former deputy, Lt. Col. Clement Kafuwa, in on-going investigations into ‘cashgate’, the systematic plunder of millions of dollars of government money.
“The Anti-Corruption Bureau has today, 11th May, 2015, arrested General Henry Odillo and Lieutenant Connell Clement T. Kafuwa in relation to payments that were made to Thuso Investments without supplying services to the Malawi Army,” said the bureau’s spokesperson Egrita Ndala in a statement released Monday evening.
Ndala said the bureau has established that the Malawi Army paid 1,921,028,000 billion Malawi kwacha (about US $4.4m) for the supply of military gear but the company never supplied despite being paid.
According to Ndala, the two top former military officials will be charged with three counts of abuse of public office, negligence by public officer in preserving money or government property and money laundering.
General Odillo came to prominence when he refused to take over government to prevent then Vice President Joyce Banda from taking over power when former President Bingu WA Mutharika suddenly dropped dead from cardiac arrest complications on April 5, 2012. Banda had fallen out with her boss then and was booted out of the then ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) but constitutionally she was supposed to take over in the event of a vacancy in State House.
But the complication was that she had founded her own People’s Party (PP) which meant conceding power to her could have meant the DPP handing over power to the opposition.
The current president Peter Mutharika, then heir apparent, and other senior DPP officials, approached Odillo to “just take over” but the General said he was not going to do anything unconstitutional.
The arrest of the top former military officials is the latest in the on-going crack-down of civil servants who colluded with top politicians and businessmen to fleece government of millions of dollars in payment for goods and services not rendered to government. Over 70 civil servants, businessmen and politicians are already in court answering to various corruption-related charges over the scandal, dubbed ‘cashgate’.
At least five suspects have already been convicted.
‘Cashgate’ is Malawi’s major corruption scandal since the southern African country gained independence from British colonialist some 50 years ago. Western donor nations and agencies reacted by suspending over US $150m in budget support. At least 40 per cent of Malawi’s budget depends on donor aid.
‘Cashgate’ might have cost Joyce Banda, Africa’s second female president after Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sir leaf, the May elections. She was beaten into third
