Kandoje arrested over Cashgate
In its crack down on Cashgate suspects, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) yesterday arrested Ministry of Health Principal Secretary (PS) II David Kandoje on charges that include laundering K500 million.
Kandoje, who served as Accountant General (AG) at a time some civil servants, businesspersons and politicians connived and siphoned billions of kwacha from the public purse at Capital Hill, is expected to appear in court today, according to ACB.
The bureau’s deputy director general Reyneck Matemba, confirming Kandoje’s arrest in an interview yesterday, said the former AG is facing charges of theft by a person employed in public service, money laundering and abuse of office.
At the time of his arrest, Kandoje was serving as principal secretary II at Ministry of Health where he was redeployed.
Kandoje was removed in December 2013 as AG by the Joyce Banda administration when donors were withholding aid due to the plunder of public funds widely known as Cashgate.
Commenting on public concerns that ACB was seemingly slow in pursuing Cashgate cases, Matemba said the bureau appreciated and fully understood the public sentiments over perceived delays in investigating and prosecuting of Cashgate suspects.
Said Matemba: “But we would urge the public to remain patient because we believe that as law enforcement agency, we would rather conduct thorough and credible investigations and secure convictions.
“It can be costly and bad to rush things through and get unwarranted acquittals. We believe getting unwarranted acquittals would be a great disservice to the nation, and that will be tantamount to helping the accused persons launder the money through the courts.”
A forensic audit by British firm Baker Tilly established that about K23 billion was stolen from public coffers between April and September 2013, thereby destabilising the budget and kissing good bye to budget support.
Since then, ACB has made arrests of several senior and junior civil servants, politicians and businesspersons that received government money for work or services they never rendered.
ACB has secured convictions in some cases and several other cases are in court.
But the law enforcers have also come under fire for not acting aggressively on the K92 billion stolen between 2009 and 2012.
