{"id":68594,"date":"2018-07-24T10:51:07","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T08:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=68594"},"modified":"2018-07-24T10:51:11","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T08:51:11","slug":"pac-asks-attorney-general-to-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/07\/24\/pac-asks-attorney-general-to-resign\/","title":{"rendered":"PAC asks Attorney General to resign"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY JAMESON CHAULUKA: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (Pac) has asked Attorney General Charles Mhango to resign for his role in the food ration deal<\/a> between the Malawi Police Service and Pioneer Investments.<\/p>\n

Pac Chairperson, Alekeni Menyani, was commenting on revelations that although the government paid the full contract price of K2.7 billion to Zameer Karim of Pioneer Investments, Mhango allegedly committed the government to paying in excess of K1.5 billion, in loans plus accrued interest, to CDH Bank if Karim failed to pay back a loan he took to finance the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe [Mhango] did not show up at the meeting. We expected the Attorney General to appear before our committee to explain [issues pertaining to] the matter.<\/p>\n

We, as Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, are saying he should just resign because he is not serving [the interest of] Malawians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mhango did not pick his mobile phone for a comment on several attempts.<\/p>\n

A letter from Ritz Attorneys at Law\u2014 who are acting on instructions from Youth and Society (Yas) \u2014 dated July 20 2018 and addressed to Attorney General (AG) Charles Mhango, questions the conduct of the AG which put the government in the precarious position.<\/p>\n

According to contents of the letter, which The Daily Times <\/em>has seen, the AG committed to paying CDH Bank a loan which Pioneer Investments took to facilitate food ration transactions although CDH Bank did not sue the Government of Malawi for loss of business.<\/p>\n

The letter adds that there were two contracts with material differences for, seemingly, the same food rations. The first contract was dated June 15 while the other one was dated August 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cManifestly, by the consent order, you effectively committed government to paying twice for the same contract, firstly as fully paid to Pioneer Investments albeit at a dubious price, and secondly as may be paid to CDH IB Ltd subject to set-offs in lieu of sums owed by Government to Zameer Karim in other contracts,\u201d the letter reads.<\/p>\n

Yas lawyer, Bright Theu, said the government has already paid about K163 million to CDH on behalf of Karim.<\/p>\n

However, the government claims that this was paid as a loan it owes another company, Pharmachem, which is also owned by Karim,.<\/p>\n

He said, although the government made a full K2.7 billion payment directly to Karim contrary to the agreement with CDH Bank, the government is paying another amount in promissory notes and that it is committed to paying a little under K1.5 billion to CDH Bank in case Karim fails to pay the bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY JAMESON CHAULUKA: Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (Pac) has asked Attorney General Charles Mhango to resign for his role in the food ration deal between the Malawi Police Service and Pioneer Investments. Pac Chairperson, Alekeni Menyani, was commenting on revelations that although the government paid the full contract price of K2.7 billion to Zameer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":47669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68594","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\/68594","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=68594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68596,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68594\/revisions\/68596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}