President Peter Mutharika has warned that the Anti- Corruption Bureau (ACB) will investigate councillors who are corruptly obtaining tenders to construct roads.
Mutharika sounded the warning yesterday when he launched the Malawi Rural Electrification Programme (Marep) Phase 8 in Mulanje.
He said the tendency has compromised the standards of roads in the country.
“Some of the councillors and contractors who are given tenders to construct the roads are not qualified. Some roads in Mzuzu constructed six months ago are already in bad shape,” he said.
His comments come a few days after our sister paper, The Sunday Times, highlighted problems facing road construction in the country.
Some road construction projects in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu have stalled, others are taking unnecessarily too long to complete while those that have been completed have already started developing potholes and cracks.
He, however, warned that the ACB would not hesitate to arrest those involved in the corrupt practices in the award of contracts.
An economist, Desmond Phiri, told The Sunday Times that the government is losing a lot of money through road projects that take too long to complete as well as those with a short lifespan.
Mutharika also took the opportunity to advise farmers not to sell their maize to some unscrupulous vendors who are ripping them off.
“Some people have started selling maize to the vendors for as low as 80 cents. These vendors are exporting the maize. This time, we have a good harvest but we have to be careful. In 2002 we made a mistake to sell the maize to Kenya [only to face hunger later]. This is my maize and it is going to stay here in Malawi,” he said.
The President said farmers should wait until Admarc starts buying agricultural produce.
On Marep, Mutharika said three trading centres per district will be connected to the national grid because the government will prioritise energy production.
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