Family claims Kamlepo missing

The family of outspoken Rumphi East member of Parliament (MP) Kamlepo Kalua has reported the legislator missing, claiming that he is incommunicado after police allegedly asked for him last Saturday.

Kalua’s elder son, Ken, said in an interview yesterday the family last communicated with the politician on Saturday and he has not been traced since then.

Kalua has been at loggerheads with public tax collector Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) and Malawi Police Service (MPS) after the two State agencies raided his houses in Blantyre and seized three vehicles for allegedly evading tax.

While expressing fear over his father’s life and condition, Ken explained that on Saturday morning his mother got a phone call from Khetase Yiwombe, officer-in-charge of Interpol/Anti-Motor Vehicle Theft Department at the National Police Headquarters in Lilongwe who said she was looking for Kalua.

Said Ken: “The police officer spoke to our mother who later relayed the message to him around 11am. Our father said he was going there [to police] and since then we have not been able to talk to him or trace him, we don’t even know his whereabouts.”

He said the family was yet to report the matter to police “because the consensus is they cannot help anything considering their demonstrated conduct when they came to seize the vehicles and treated us like thugs”.

On Sunday, High Court Judge Rowland Mbvundula gave Kalua a temporal relief from an imminent arrest in connection to the alleged tax evasion issue.

The court further ordered the MRA and the police to release the three vehicles belonging to Kalua and his other son Penjani, a musician widely known as Fredokiss, which were seized by the two government institutions.

Lawyer for the parliamentarian, Wanangwa Hara, yesterday said he could not comment on the issue of his client missing “up until I get hold of him”.

Yesterday, National Police spokesperson James Kadadzera said he was not aware that the vocal parliamentarian was wanted by Area 30 police.

When The Nation called Yiwombe, she first cut the line before calling back later, saying “do you know the police has a public relations officer? Any police officer has no mandate to speak to the media except the public relations officer, so consult him on that” before cutting the line.

Last week, MRA and police impounded Kalua’s two vehicles- a Mercedes Benz and a grounded Jeep Grand Cherokee—and a Toyota V8 belonging to his son Penjani on allegations they were smuggled. n