{"id":80531,"date":"2019-07-15T03:54:03","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T01:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=80531"},"modified":"2019-07-15T03:54:03","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T01:54:03","slug":"saulos-chilima-takes-dig-at-tractor-gate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/07\/15\/saulos-chilima-takes-dig-at-tractor-gate\/","title":{"rendered":"Saulos Chilima takes dig at Tractor-gate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Yohane Symon: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Former State vice-president Saulos Chilima, who is also UTM president, Sunday said there was need to prosecute all people involved in the mismanagement of a tractor deal, loosely called Tractor-gate, involving $50 million loan.<\/p>\n<p>Chilima was speaking at a rally he addressed at St Augustine 3 Primary School Ground in Mangochi District Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The government obtained the loan to buy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.times.mw\/malawi-government-dupes-taxpayers-on-tractor-deal\/\">tractors<\/a> meant for One Village, One Product groups across the country.<\/p>\n<p>However, the tractors were sold at giveaway prices to politicians and businesspersons.<\/p>\n<p>Chilima said issuing a public apology in the way the tractor deal was handled cannot help prevent future misappropriation of public funds by the government officials who are entrusted with managing tax payers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cPeople who are involved in the tractor deal are known and still alive. They should be brought to book because the tractors were bought using a loan which Malawians will continue to pay. Apologising in public is not enough to stop corruption,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Last week, Agriculture Ministry released a public apology regretting the way the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.times.mw\/more-pressure-over-tractor-deal\/\">government<\/a> handled the tractor deal, but Chilima said that should be followed by appropriate legal action.<\/p>\n<p>He also encouraged Malawians to remain vigilant in holding the leadership accountable in the way public resources are used in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Yohane Symon: Former State vice-president Saulos Chilima, who is also UTM president, Sunday said there was need to prosecute all people involved in the mismanagement of a tractor deal, loosely called Tractor-gate, involving $50 million loan. Chilima was speaking at a rally he addressed at St Augustine 3 Primary School Ground in Mangochi District [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":80533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80531","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\/80531","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=80531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80535,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80531\/revisions\/80535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}