Blantyre, Malawi (PANA) – Victor Sithole, the Malawi Government Accounts Assistant, who became the second convict in ‘cashgate – the systematic plunder of millions of dollars of government money, was sentenced last week to nine years imprisonment with hard labour by a magistrates’ court in the capital, Lilongwe.
He was convicted for money laundering, illegal possession of foreign currency and being found in possession of property likely to have been stolen.
Senior Resident Magistrate Patrick Chirwa sentenced the junior civil servant, now 28 – who was in August 2013 found with suspicious cash amounting 112 million Malawi kwacha (about US$ 23,000), US$ 31,000 and South African Rand (ZAR) 127,000 (about US $12,000) – to seven years for money laundering, one year for illegal possession of foreign currency and one year for being found in possession of property suspected to have been stolen.
The sentences will run consecutively, meaning he will serve a total of nine years.
His arrest kick-started what was to be dubbed ‘cashgate’. It was preceded a month later by the shooting of Ministry of Finance Budget Director Paul Mphwiyo, thus unravelling the whole ‘cashgate’ affair. Suddenly millions of cash in various denominations, including Malawi kwacha, South African Rand and US dollar, started showing up in unlikely places like hidden in car boots (trunks), stuffed in baby dolls, stashed under beds or under pillows.
The suspects were avoiding the formal banking sector since the unexplained money could have raised eye-brows.
In ‘cashgate’, businessmen and politicians were conniving with civil servants to skim millions of dollars from the government payment system called the Integrated Financial Management Systems (IFMIS) to effect payment for goods and services not rendered to government.
Former president Joyce Banda, with the help of the British government, hired the British audit firm Baker Tilly to audit IFMIS. The audit revealed that at least 13 billion Malawi kwacha (about US$ 30 million) was skimmed from government.
The figure has since been revised to 24 billion Malawi kwacha (over US$ 60 million).
Over 70 civil servants and businessmen are currently in court answering ‘cashgate’ charges ranging from theft, theft by public officers to possession of property suspected of having been stolen, fraud and money laundering.
The first to be convicted in ‘cashgate’ cases was former Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Tressa Namathanga Senzani, who was sentenced to three years in jail.
Western donor nations and agencies, who bankroll at least 40 percent of Malawi’s budget, reacted by freezing budgetary aid worth of US$ 150 million in the wake of ‘cashgate’, the worst financial scandal to hit Malawi in its 50 years as an independent country.
Although she was not directly fingered, the scandal could have cost Banda – Africa’s second female president – the May 20 elections.
