Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Simplex Chithyola Banda, has courted controversy and condemnation for bragging on Facebook that he was a rich person before joining politics.
Chithyola posted countless pictures of the property, including an uncompleted house, which he claims he acquired outside the political realm.
Apparently, his intention was to silence Malawians who have been raising eyebrows about his sudden opulence.
“As we celebrate Mothers’ Day, this is what I built for my parents in 2017 at Namuleri Farms (1) Santhe Kasungu (LifeB4Politics)” he wrote in one post with a photo of an uncompleted house.
In another post, Chithyola – who is also Malawi Congress Party (MCP) member of Parliament for Kasungu South Constituency, narrates a story of a picture, which he claims was taken in 2010. He brags that as they were celebrating their Mothers’ Day, his son – Dumisani – was asking him about the place the picture was taken.
“As we celebrate Mothers’ Day, My Son Dumisan shares with me the below photo and asks me Dad where was this taken? Then on remember a day in 2010 at my office then I was doing skype call with our partners from SLF who were giving us US$100, 000 for our charity work. The son was always accompanying me to office. The picture below was taken by the compute in front of us. 4 years down the line, he was the youngest border at the then Joyce Banda Foundation in Blantyre.
“The youngest in History at the age of 18. Today he is a man and fully grown up. He helps me farming and planning for the future together. As we celebrate Mothers’ Day, I also celebrate unakubala of a boy child. Happy birthday Angoni and indeed every picture has a story behind,” he wrote.
The minister also posted video clips showing his father watering tobacco nursery at the said Namuleri Farms in Kasungu. He claimed that tobacco farming is one of the sectors that brought him incalculable wealth before joining politics.
But his posts have angered some Malawians who have described Chithyola as a selfish and showy person.
“Ndi matchubu ali ndi iwe unakapanda kuposita nyumbayi mu 2017? Nyumba iyi ndi misonkho ya aMalawi,” reacted Samantha Liomba.
Another commenter, Felix Chingwalu, suspects that Chithyola might have built the house with money he allegedly misappropriated while at Chinansi Foundation.
In 2021, the Global Fund announced that senior staff members at Chinansi Foundation, an implementer of Global Fund grants in Malawi, engaged in opportunistic fraudulent activity. US$70,572 was misappropriated from a program supporting adolescent girls and young women.
The Fund disclosed that the staff submitted fabricated bank statements to conceal the wrongdoing. Additionally, there were non-compliant expenses amounting to US$9,924, due to inadequate supporting documents and irregular procurement of vehicle hire services.
“The wrongdoing was accomplished through overriding controls in the program and went undetected due to a weak governance structure at Chinansi Foundation,” said the Global Fund then.
Chingwalu’s sentiments are shared by Chime Z’yemba who suspects that Chithyolo is trying to evade public scrutiny over the wealth he is acquiring while in government.
In his comment, Mphatso Angozo Murama, reminds Chithyola how he struggled to buy a door for his house. This was corroborated by congregants at the Balaka CCAP who said the minister did not have money when he was at the district.
“Actually, the church used to have problems to collect rentals from him. He also struggled to pay hardware owners for the materials he took on credit to the extent that the business owners took him to Balaka Police Station to force him to pay. And that happened when he had already become the MP. So how can he claim that he had all that wealth before joining politics?” asked a female congregant who opted for anonymity.
She joined other concerned citizens who demanded fresh probe into the abuse of resources at Chinansi Foundation.
The citizens also want Chithyola be investigated to establish where and how he sourced money he distributed to MCP delegates ahead of the party’s national convention.
The minister could not pick our phone calls when we sought to get his comment on the allegations made against him.
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