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| National |
| Maize report still a secret |
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by
Mc Donald Chapalapata, 26 August 2004
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12:46:34
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Government was until on Wednesday keeping a tight lid on the report into the management of strategic grain reserves and how former Minister of Finance Friday Jumbe built his Superior Hotel in Blantyre.
A commission of inquiry on the issue presented its report to President Bingu wa Mutharika on Tuesday morning and no one, including the accused former minister, is aware of the contents of the report.
Jumbe said in an interview on Wednesday as a concerned party, he has asked for a copy of the report and he is yet to receive it.
“I am yet to get a copy of the report,” said Jumbe.
Asked why government was still holding on to the report when the issue of maize and how the strategic grain reserves affected millions of Malawians who are entitled to know what happened, government spokesman Ken Lipenga said the report was just submitted to the President on Tuesday.
“It will be up to the President to determine when he would like to make the contents of the report public. But he has to go through it first. I am told it is a voluminous document,” said Lipenga, who is also Minister of Information, Communications and Tourism.
Asked if the holding on of the contents of the report will not be viewed as a cover-up and promote speculation, Lipenga said he does not see how the President would want to cover up the report.
“I don’t see why the President would want to cover up the report. It only reached him yesterday and obviously he has to read it thoroughly before he determines a course of action. Surely you wouldn’t expect him to read it in a hurry,” he said.
A confidential source told Nation Online last night that the report is “very revealing, factual and scientific”.
The source wondered why Jumbe rushed to defend himself on the public radio on Monday before the contents were out.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) also investigated the case and found that there was no corruption involved, but said there was criminal negligence on the part of Jumbe and other officers from Admarc, Ministry of Agriculture and the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA).
There was also a Manduwa Report of Parliament which corroborated the ACB findings and the involvement of other high profile figures like former Agriculture Minister Leonard Mangulama and Mrs. Joyce Banda’s company Akajuwe Enterprises.
Another Parliamentary report of a committee chaired by Vitus Dzoole Mwale was never tabled in Parliament after the Manduwa one was rejected. Manduwa was fired from the agriculture committee of Parliament.
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