LILONGWE (Maravi Post)—Malawi’s 5th President Arthur Peter Mutharika (APM) said at a meeting at Kamuzu Palace with Mr. Makhtar Diop who is World Bank’s Vice President for Africa that Malawi’s culture of plundering public funds dubbed cashgate is regrettable.
Speaking at the function, Mutharika stated that cashgate must be prevented from happening again.
“Cashgate was a regrettable occurrence; one which must be prevented from ever happening again at all cost,” said Mutharika.
He also said that his administration is committed to reforming the public sector as well entrenching “a culture of adherence to rules and regulations.”
Mutharika said: “We are committed, now more than ever before, to entrench a culture of adherence to our rules and regulations, so that the plunder of public resources called Cash gate should never happen again in this country.”
It is ironical that Mutharika made these statements at a time his administration happens to be at the centre of siphoning money from government confers and breaking rule and regulations.
On cashgate, for instance, there have been reports that at Mzuzu City Council and Malawi Law Commission workers were given double allowances and double retirement packages respectively. It is also on record that the president himself failed to account for expenses he made on his United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) trip meaning that to this day Malawians do not know how much money the president spent on the UNGA trip.
On adherence to rules and regulations, ADMARC defied clear procurement regulations in what has now become ‘maizegate’. Still on this, the Minister of Agriculture Dr George Chaponda, a close ally of the president, did not adhere to the rule of law as he travelled to Germany on ministerial duties defying a court order stopping him from executing his ministerial duties.
The delegation of the World Bank was in Malawi led by the World Bank’s Vice President for Africa to appraise themselves of the Malawi’s development situation.
