A day after his name was known to be on the list of people that benefitted from Zuneth Sattar’s fraud, embattled Vice President Saulos Chilima has for the first time since he joined politics failed to utter any convincing words.
Chilima was on Friday mobbed by journalists after touring Mbelwa District Council on his Reforms Tour to the North. They wanted to know his thoughts on the revelations that have put his political career in jeopardy.
But to their surprise, the UTM leader chickened out with a brief and unconvincing answer that left the media reeling for more.
“I would not want to comment at this stage. Let the processes be as they should be. So I will not make any specific comment on that particular matter,” he said.
The case, currently in the UK’s Uxbridge Magistrate Court is on UK-based business mogul Zuneth Abdul Sattar who also has a Malawian passport.
The UK government’s National Crimes Agency is accusing Sattar of bribing his way through to get lucrative procurement deals for his companies.
Chilima is one of the country’s top public officials named in the court affidavit, as revealed on Thursday night by the Platform for Investigative Journalism (PIJ).
Meanwhile, calls have already started from all quarters of society for the Vice President to resign and defend himself through legal processes in court.
Youth and Society Executive Director Charles Kajoloweka has led the calls; urging all those implicated in the scam to immediately resign pending investigations.
Speaking earlier to Rainbow Television, the anti-corruption activist argued that anything less than resigning would soil the reputation of the current regime that rose to power on the premise of the rule of law.
He has since asked the country’s anti-corruption watch dog Anti-Corruption Bureau (ABC) to speed up investigations into the allegations as this was a matter of urgency.
“It is important that Malawians should not just be following what is being revealed in the UK but these issues should also be looked at local level and all those mentioned should be taken to task through our local laws,” said Kajoloweka.
It is alleged that Sattar splashed huge sums of money to some top government officials to influence procurement decisions in some government ministries and agencies.
Uxbridge Magistrate Court on Thursday dismissed Sattar application to have his bail conditions eased so that he be allowed to travel to Malawi and Dubai.