Attorney General (AG) Thabo Chakaka-Nyirenda held meetings with German prosecutors in an effort to rescue $543 000 that the Malawi Government paid to a United Kingdom (UK) firm in a botched fertiliser deal.

The AG said, in response to a questionnaire on Thursday, that the funds remain frozen, waiting for a court order to have them released to Malawi.

Chakaka-Nyirenda: The account is frozen

“I have had meetings with the prosecutors here in Germany, Munich. There is an application for confiscation of the funds which will allow for the repatriation of the funds to Malawi,” Chakaka-Nyirenda said.

He disclosed that one of those prosecutors obtained the freezing order to rescue the funds paid towards this year’s messed up Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP).

The AG also said necessary steps were being taken on the $182 000 paid in a bank in New Jersey, United States of America. The amounts add up to K725 million paid to the UK firm, Barkaat Foods Limited, which later cancelled the contract.

The scandal forced President Lazarus Chakwera to fire minister of Agriculture Lobin Lowe and his deputy Madalitso Wirima on October 25. Sam Kawale has since replaced Lowe.

Chizuma: I did not
vet the contract

It transpired later that there were shortcuts in the procurement processes as relevant offices such as Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets (PPDA), which was supposed to grant a ‘no objection’, Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and Government Contracting Unit (GCU), which were supposed to vet the contract, were not consulted.

The whole contract raised elements of fraud and this forced Parliament to form a joint parliamentary committee to investigate the matter. ACB is legally mandated to vet all high-value contracts under provisions of the PPDA Act. The bureau’s director general Martha Chizuma appeared before the parliamentary committee on Wednesday. She said they did not vet the contract and her office would probe the K750 million paid to the UK firm.

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