Former Board Chairperson of the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera), Dingiswayo Jere, has charged that contrary to what has been reported before, the parastatal\u2019s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Raphael Kamoto, should shoulder the blame for directing that Mera should buy 10,000 metric tonnes of maize for Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc).<\/p>\n
Mera purchased the staple grain from Auction Holdings Commodity Exchange Limited (AHCX) using K2.9 billion from the Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF) and the decision resulted into the dismissal of Kamoto and the termination of Finance Director Elias Hausi\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n
Kamoto has since obtained an injunction against his dismissal.<\/p>\n
There have been reports in the media that the then Mera\u2019s board sanctioned the purchase of the maize and that Kamoto and Hausi should, therefore, not be accused of having made the decision irregularly.<\/p>\n
But in a strong-worded statement released yesterday, Jere says the regulator\u2019s board approved management\u2019s request on condition that all necessary procedures, including that guidance from Treasury should be sought first, were followed.<\/p>\n
According to Jere, despite the clear direction of the Mera Board of Directors, Kamoto proceeded to instruct AHCX to start transporting the maize as soon as possible and indicated that Mera would be transferring the money for the transaction in less than three weeks.<\/p>\n
Jere further argues that Kamoto sough Treasury\u2019s advice on February 25 2016 after having already instructed AHCX to start transferring the maize the previous day.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn 1st March, 2016, Mera Management proceeded to effect a bank transfer in the sum of K2,963,575,000 in favour of (AHCX) in respect of the purchase of maize. It is, therefore, clear that Mera Management proceeded to pay for the purchase of maize even before the Ministry of Finance had given its guidance on the matter,\u201d says Jere in the statement.<\/p>\n
He also claims that the regulator\u2019s board only came to know about the payment through other quarters which he has not named.<\/p>\n
Jere further accuses Mera\u2019s management of failing to comply with the Public Procurement Act in the purchase of the maize \u201cas the use of single source, in this case [AHCX], could only proceed after the granting of a \u201cNo Objection\u201d by the Office of the Director of Public Procurement (ODPP).<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon further inquiry of the matter by the Mera Board of Directors, it later transpired that Mera would incur a non-refundable loss of K1.8 billion in the transaction, a fact which was never disclosed by management to the Mera Board when requesting the board\u2019s approval to purchase maize from AHCX,\u201d Jere, who resigned from Mera\u2019s board on March 31 last year, states.<\/p>\n
When contacted for his reaction to Jere\u2019s statement yesterday, Kamoto simply said he had no comment. He gave the same response on reports that he is being blocked from accessing his office not because of the dismissal but because he is on suspension.<\/p>\n
Apparently, the injunction that the High Court sitting in Lilongwe granted him only stopped the regulator from implementing its decision to dismiss him and not the decision to suspend him.<\/p>\n
An earlier statement from Mera current Board Chairperson, Joseph Bvumbwe, challenged Mera\u2019s management to do everything possible to recover from Admarc all the money spent on the purchase of maize so that it could be remitted to the PSF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Board Chairperson of the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera), Dingiswayo Jere, has charged that contrary to what has been reported before, the parastatal\u2019s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Raphael Kamoto, should shoulder the blame for directing that Mera should buy 10,000 metric tonnes of maize for Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc). Mera purchased the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43130","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\/43130","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=43130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43136,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43130\/revisions\/43136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}