President Lazarus Chakweras close ally Smollett Kachere of Kachere Agriculture Trading has told the media in Lilongwe that there are big thieves stealing maize at ADMARC.
Kachere who has dared people to go and check his claims for themselves, said ADMARC has no 38,000 metric tons of Maize as it claims since bigger part has already been stolen.
According to Kachere, these big thieves are trying to conceal information thereby blowing up the Kachere issue just to hide their dealings.
He has told the media, that the big people have stolen so much to extent that he could not find enough Maize when his drivers went to uplift it at ADMARC.
Kachere has also said that he is ready to pay back the 112 million Kwacha through subtractions from his contract if NFRA is ready to have him continue transporting the Maize.
Kachere failed to appear before the committee on Tuesday as the committee resorted not to meet him since the matter is in court.
The National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) Board of Trustees recently confirmed social media rumours which has been alleging that Kachere has duped them 13 maize trucks which were supposed to offload the grain at its Kanengo Silos from Admarc markets in the Northern Region.
NFRA Board Chairperson Dennis Kalekeni said 13 trucks under Kachere Agriculture Trading carrying 7,500 bags of 50kg valued at K112, 500,000.00 at a purchasing price of 300 per kg went missing while in transit.
Kalekeni also highlighted that the maize in question was part of the 67 thousand metric tonnes of the government funded Strategic Grain Reserve (SGR) that Admarc procured on behalf of NFRA at a tune of K12 billion kwacha.
He said: “Part of the stock was withdrawn by the Department of Disaster Management to help needy households and the remaining 37,120 metric tonnes were supposed to transported by NFRA to Kanengo,
“All procurement measures were followed and a truck of one the transporters Kachere Agriculture Trading disappeared on the queue when it arrived at Kanengo as arrangements were being made to transship maize from the van to an open vehicle.”
According to NFRA regulations, it is illegal to offload maize from a van because it compromises the process of quality verification.
However, when Kachere Agricultural Trading and NFRA agreed to the proposal by the transporter to do the transshiping at their premises, neither of the vehicles returned.
Continued non-compliance by the transporter to return the missing grain until October 12 prompted management of NFRA to report the matter to the police.
