According to reports in Malawi Media, People’s Party (PP) has denied claims by Pika Manondo that Peoples Party founder Joyce Banda used cashgate money to drum up support for weak candidates at the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) convention in 2013.
Pika Manondo, who is the second suspect in the ongoing Paul Mphwiyo attempted murder case, told the Lilongwe high court that the former President Joyce Banda helped Lazarus Chakwera at the MCP convention by financially supporting his campaign. If indeed this is true it does not reflect well on the Reverend.
However, in an interview, Peoples Party spokesperson, Gay hating Kenneth Msonda wondered why people in the country and suspects in the cashgate scandal are linking the party to the theft of government money yet most people implicated in the matter are not from the party.
Kenneth Msonda added that their party is looking forward to get the real answers on the K92 billion and K577 million cashgate scandals.
“PP is surprised that people mentioned in the scandal are not our members. Its primitive political propaganda to link their cashgate deals to our party. That’s laughable. PP is interested to see how this Hollywood-like movie will come to an end,” said Msonda.
He also likened the scandal to a film which he says has so many actors and directors so people should be patient to see how it will end.
In court on Thursday, Manondo said Banda first wanted Tembo to win in the convention with a reason that they should easily beat him in the 2014 tripartite elections.
The evidence brought in court by Manondo that Joyce Banda sponsored MCP’s convention with cashgate money corroborated what Oswald Lutepo said on Wednesday.
Lutepo, the last defence witness of the first suspect in the matter, Macdonald Kumwembe, told the court that money plundered from government was used by Manondo to facilitate the printing of campaign materials for John Tembo.
Meantime reports also suggest businessman Pika Manondo, second accused person in the ongoing shooting case of former budget director, Paul Montfort Mphwiyo, whose shooting on 13 September 2013 led to the unravelling of the systematic looting of millions of government money dubbed ‘cashgate’ has entered his defence of his two charges of conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder charges.
Manondo, who was found with a case to answer on two accounts of conspiracy and attempted murder of former budget Paul Mphwiyo, on Thursday told the court how he was working with the gun-shot survivor in their deals and cashgate convict Oswald Lutepo.
H told the court how close he was with Mphwiyo and the deals he was being sent to do by the firmer budget director as his errand boy and also for the then ruling People Party (PP).
Manondo said they first started their political strategy towards PP convention which was held in Blantyre where he was used to campaign for some politicians which Mphwiyo has listed among them were Brown Mpinganjira and Uladi Mussa who were competing on first vice and second vice president respectively.
According to Manondo almost the whole list he was given by Paul Mphwiyo to campaign for made it except Mpinganjira and Mussa who flopped and that he even told Mphwiyo a day before the convention that the two will likely lose as their competitors Sidik Mia and Dr Cassim Chilumpha respectively had both financial muscle and political experience to outclass the two.
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