By: James Odziwa
Blanyre, Saturday, November 7, 2015 (MaraviPost): Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Mary Kachale continues to put the squeeze on embattled Paul Mphwiyo who survived an assassination attempt on his life and opened the Pandora’s Box that is now popularly known as Cashgate.
A scandal so encompassing that it has implicated former President Joyce Banda a darling of the west and who last month was meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Boston, as she addressed students at Harvard University on threats to women’s leadership, democratization and the rule of law in Africa.
The same scandal has snared former minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Raphael Kasambara who is accused of conspiracy to commit murder in the case of the shooting of former Ministry of Finance budget director Paul Mphwiyo and is now fallen sick from the pressures of the trial and is seeking approval from unsympathetic Malawi court to travel to South Africa for treatment.
Adding insult to injury Mary Kachale has once again ordered the fiscal Police in Lilongwe to rearrested Former Budget Director Paul Mphwiyo in connection to his alleged involvement in the Cashgate scandal…
The said Paul Mphwiyo who nearly lost his life and still has a bullet in his skull is accused of siphoning over K3 billions of public funds from Capitol Hill in Lilongwe.
Mphwiyo’s arrest comes three months after he was fingered out as the mastermind of the theft and money laundering of public funds amounting to K20 billion.
The mild looking Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Mary Kachale in August told High Court in Lilongwe that even though Paul Mphwiyo was the target of an attempted assassination, he was the main architect of the scandal that forced the country’s main donors to pull out.
Cashgate convict, Leonard Kalonga, former assistant director of tourism at Ministry of Tourism also named Mr Paul Mphwiyo as the brain behind the looting of public funds at the Capitol Hill.
In his affidavit, Kalonga told the High Court in Lilongwe in August that Mphwiyo was in-charge of cashgate operations, saying he “stressed that there were a lot of players involved in the system.”
“He (Mphwiyo) assured us that he was going to make everything available and he gave details on how he was going to do so, so as not to attract suspicion when it comes to single payments involving millions,” reads in part Kalonga’s affidavit.
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p class=”story-body-text”>A source inside the prosecutor’s office revealed to the Maravi Post that Paul Mphwiyo while being squeezed was not the main target. They are hoping to get information from him that will implicate higher up. “If anyone knows where the bodies are buried it is Paul Mphwiyo: said the source.
