The pressure on Vice President Saulos Chilima and his UTM over the purchase of 200 vehicles has intensifies after a concerned citizen has written the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) to also probe how the party and its leaders have accumulated so much assets including the vehicles without any formal source of income.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau is already investigating how the 200 vehicles were purchased. UTM having only four MPs does not get funding from Parliament and it is not clear how the party managed to purchase such a huge fleets of vehicles that could cost more than MK5 billion.
The concerned citizen, Gosten Chinseu has penned the revenue collector to commence investigations on how the party acquired all its assets and any other taxation issues relating to the its source of funding.
Chinseu wants MRA to institute serious investigations to have the matter addressed in accordance with MRA’s purpose of tax compliance.
“As a concerned and enlightened citizen, I fully understand that UTM, owing to their numerical representation in Parliament does not fall in the bracket of receiving funding from the government.
“This means two things; UTM’s financials cannot be audited as stipulated in the Political Parties Act but at the same time their accumulation of assets and resources should still be scrutinized by other agencies of government,” writes Chinseu in the letter.
Chinseu added: “I am of the view that their assets and the source of it must be investigated exhaustively to fully ascertain whether they are paying the right taxes commensurate to their venture.”
Chinseu’s request to have the party and its leader investigated follows recent revelations that UTM has procured 200 vehicles 44 of which have been registered in the name of Khwesi Msusa, a Blantyre based businessman who is regarded as Chilima’s close confidant.
On 8th May this year the Nation Newspaper reported that the ACB is pondering on commencing investigations relating to the procurement of the said vehicles.
UTM Spokesperson Frank Mwenefumbo has declined to comment on the letter saying the matter is already before the ACB.