Firebrand Member of Parliament (MP) for Rumphi East, Kamlepo Kalua, on Tuesday tussled with Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development George Chaponda, over claims that the latter received kickbacks in the dropped Brazil maize deal.<\/p>\n
The government had earlier announced that it would procure maize from Brazil and Mexico, among other countries, but the decision was later dropped apparently because expenditures would be higher compared to other countries.<\/p>\n
Zambia\u2019s u-turn on its word to sell over 100,000 metric tonnes to Malawi after banning the exportation of the grain also compelled the government to drop expensive deals, reportedly because it would be cheaper to source the grain from Malawi\u2019s western neighbour.<\/p>\n
On Monday, as debate in Parliament heated up on the purchase of maize by the government, Kalua claimed to have evidence showing that Chaponda had gone to Brazil where he had received kickbacks in relation to the maize deal.<\/p>\n
This prompted Speaker of Parliament, Richard Msowoya, to demand that Kalua should provide evidence on Tuesday to substantiate his claims on \u201csuch a sensitive and important matter\u201d.<\/p>\n
Both Chaponda and Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodall Gondwe confirmed that the government would not procure maize from Brazil and Mexico after opting for Zambia and Romania.<\/p>\n
When Parliament reconvened Tuesday morning, First Deputy\u00a0Speaker Esther Mcheka-Chilenje ordered Kalua to provide the\u00a0evidence as Msowoya had directed the previous day.<\/p>\n
Before providing his so-called evidence, Kalua charged that he had in fact more information regarding Chaponda\u2019s alleged underhand dealings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have electronic evidence [on the Brazil deal]. I have evidence\u00a0of him involved in corruption and there is more evidence to come,\u201d he claimed before Mcheka-Chilenje demanded the evidence.<\/p>\n
When the so-called evidence was presented, in the form of two documents, it transpired that they had no signature or any letterhead as is required of any official document.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the communication in the documents was between former Malawi Ambassador to New York, Brian Bowler and Chaponda who was then Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.<\/p>\n
In spite of the development, most opposition lawmakers including their leader, Lazarus Chakwera, asked Mcheka-Chilenje not to dismiss the allegation offhand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there is a way in which we can ascertain the veracity of the documents. This house can subpoena people to speak under oath\u2026 There are committees that can look into this rather than just judging that the documents are inadmissible,\u201d Chakwera said.<\/p>\n
Some MPs demanded that the documents should be circulated in the chamber, but both Chaponda and Mcheka-Chilenje objected to the idea.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy circulate something that is out of context? The issue is about allegations that I travelled to Brazil and received kickbacks and so I demand evidence,\u201d Chaponda said.<\/p>\n
Mcheka-Chilenje later ruled that Kalua\u2019s documents were out of context and dismissed the matter altogether while also ruling him out of order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Firebrand Member of Parliament (MP) for Rumphi East, Kamlepo Kalua, on Tuesday tussled with Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development George Chaponda, over claims that the latter received kickbacks in the dropped Brazil maize deal. The government had earlier announced that it would procure maize from Brazil and Mexico, among other countries, but the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36102"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36106,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36102\/revisions\/36106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}