An officer at Malawi Revenue Authority based at Domestic Taxes Station in Dedza, has been arrested for allegedly stealing money amounting to MK12 million.

The suspect has been identified as Charles Chimwendo, 32, of Chimwendo village in the area of Traditional Authority Mzukuzuku in Mzimba district.

It is reported that Chimwendo has been in unauthorized custody of various Revenue receipt books.

He has fraudulently been issuing the receipts upon collection of revenue from unsuspecting taxpayers.

The scam came to light when his superiors through Msonkho online platform noticed that a certain filling station (name withheld) had not remitted Provisional tax.

The M.R.A. officials confronted the filling station management who revealed that Chimwendo had already collected the money.

A close inspection of the general receipt that was issued by the suspect, identified it as fake.

This eye opening incident prompted Chimwendo’s workmates to revisit the previous data of the year 2021.

Later, it was discovered that another trader (name withheld) had also not remitted payment towards the submitted Value Added Tax (VAT) return for the month of June 2021.

The trader also produced a receipt fraudulently issued by the suspect at Dedza Domestic Taxes Station.

Chimwendo is expected to answer the charges of Forgery and Theft by servant respectively.

The Police investigation team says the swindled amount of MK12 million is pegged after preliminary investigation.

However, the amount could rise further since some duplicate receipt leaves have been deliberately removed by Chimwendo from the receipt books, whose amount will be ascertained.

Source; MIJ