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MALAWI-POLITICS-CORRUPTION
Malawi president hit by graft scandal
BLANTYRE, Malawi, July 2, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Malawian President Peter
Mutharika on Monday faced a growing corruption scandal ahead of next year’s
election after a leaked report from the country’s anti-graft body allegedly
accused him of fraud.
Civil action groups called for Mutharika to resign over claims that he and
the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) received about $195,000
(167,000 euros) from a contractor supplying food rations to Malawi police.
“The information we have been getting is very clear that the president
benefitted from that transaction,” Gift Trapence of the Civil Service
Organisations action group told AFP.
“If he does not resign after 14 days, we will take to the streets.”
Mutharika’s spokesman told local media that the president had done nothing
wrong after the leaked Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) report was published in
newspapers at the weekend.
ACB director Reyneck Matemba confirmed it was probing the contract over
police food but declined to give further details.
“We are about to conclude our investigations,” he told AFP.
Malawi, one of the world’s poorest and aid-dependent countries, will hold
presidential and parliamentary elections in May 2019.
Graft cases have recently rocked Malawian politics.
Mutharika was elected in 2014 after his predecessor Joyce Banda was
embroiled in the “Cashgate” scandal when government officials siphoned off
millions of dollars of public money.
Banda returned to Malawi in April after four years of self-imposed exile
and said she was ready to run in the elections against Mutharika.
In April, thousands of Malawians took part in the country’s first
nationwide anti-government demonstrations since 2011.
The marches, organised by civil action groups, were against alleged
corruption and poor governance under Mutharika.
BSS/AFP/MRI/1827 hrs