Malawi has lost $40-million in the corrupt sale of maize, a staple food in a country where more than three million face starvation, a top government official said on Saturday.
The figure, supplied by an official from the country’s national audit office who asked not to be named, follows last month’s revelation that 160 000 tons of the country’s strategic grain reserves had been mismanaged.
”It was quite a substantial amount of money lost because the maize was originally bought at a higher price and sold at low price,” the official said.
The irregular sale of maize has been blamed for contributing to food shortages gripping the country, where 600 000 tons of maize are needed to stave off famine threatening more than three million people.
President Bakili Muluzi last month sacked Poverty Alleviation Minister Leonard Mangulama after a report alleged he resold, but never paid for 300 tons of maize when he was still agriculture minister two years ago.
Other top officials from the state-run grain marketing board ADMARC have been implicated, including finance minister Friday Jumbe, formerly ADMARC’s general manager.
Malawi’s director of public prosecutions has asked the country’s Anti-Corruption Bureau to charge all those involved in the maize scandal, which has embarrassed Muluzi’s government. – Sapa-AFP