According to reporting by a South african news website, Malawi’s former President Joyce Banda who has been in self exile since losing to Peter Mutharika might have been involved in an oil scheme that defrauded the Malawi tax payers.
An influential watchdog that monitors Malawi’s extractive industries is demanding an explanation for a mysterious payment of $235,700 (89-million kwacha) to Joyce Banda’s former government by a company that landed major oil and gas exploration concessions on Lake Malawi. By Collins Mtika for CENTRE FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM MALAWI.
The payment, by the state-owned UAE company RakGas to the Reserve Bank of Malawi’s account for the mines department, was made in April 2014, barely a month before the election that toppled Banda.
It was deposited at a time when all licences were supposedly suspended because of suspected irregularities.
The unusual wire transfer was picked up and queried by independent consultants LBN Strategies of Cologne and Lilongwe-based Resources M&E while examining the Reserve Bank’s accounts as part of a scoping exercise for government.
Asked about the deposit, bank spokesman Mbane Ngwira said: “The reserve bank is just a banker to government. It may not know why certain sums are coming at certain times.”
