ACB POUNNCES ULADI. MUSSA

ACB pounces on Uladi Mussa

The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) will soon open a case against Uladi Mussa who is alleged to have used his position as former Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security to aid foreigners acquire Malawi citizenship status dubiously. For a month now damaging revelations have been emerging on how Uladi headed a syndicate through which he made Burundi and Rwanda nationals pay K250,000 each to get Malawian citizenship documents. Officials at ACB say they now have every documentation in their docket to bring the former minister to justice in a court of law. The investigation into Uladi’s syndicate revealed that he singlehandedly aided hundreds of foreign nationals for personal gain. One case is of Burundian, Hakizimana Egide who applied for his citizenship and that of other four family members in September 2013. Surprisingly, their applications were approved just within a month. When queried more on what really transpired behind official lines, the Burundians revealed that they met Uladi at his Area 10 residence where they gave him K1.5 million to cater for the five of them. Realizing that the system was porous, Egide returned within weeks with another application this time with names of nine Rwanda nationals who he claimed are his relations. Same kind of bribes were made to the minister, this time through his personal aide, and the applications were approved in March 2014. According to the Burundians, by the time Peoples Party lost the May 2014 elections they had already made another K3 million payment to Uladi for the processing of citizenships for ten other people. Uladi- who is the current leader of Peoples Party- was also earlier exposed by a Rwandese, Eric Banyana, who instead of applying for citizenship for only his wife and children ended up adding six more people on the application list. The PP leader told a local weekly that as minister he had no powers to single-handedly approve any citizenship application and that he only responded to a memo from Immigration Department. However, officials at Immigration Department have rubbished Uladi’s claims and have launched a probe to get to the bottom of the matter. The influx of Rwanda and Burundi nationals in the country’s major cities and trading centres has persistently worried locals who wonder why and how these foreigners acquire citizenship, land and business permits without following procedures.