By Our Senior Reporter
As Malawians continue to wallow in poverty and hunger that has dominated many parts of the country, the government has spent about Mk1.5 billion in procuring four state-of-the-art vehicles.
The four latest models of Today Prado 2024 have been allocated to presidential security officers and the vehicles now form part of the presidential convoy.
Some of these brand new vehicles were seen on duty on Saturday when President Lazarus Chakwera landed at Kamuzu International Airport on his return from the USA.
According to impeccable government sources at the government heartbeat, Capital Hill, the four vehicles were bought from CFAO/Toyota Malawi in September before they were modified to fit their security requirements.
This latest model of Toyota Prado was only launched by CFAO/Toyota Malawi just over a month ago on 27th August.
According to information we have obtained from CFAO/Toyota Malawi, the model that has been bought by government for State House convoy vehicles is named Toyota Prado First Edition.
A Quotation with have received from CFAO/Toyota Malawi shows that this Toyota Prado First Edition is costing Mk333,450,000 a unit.
So for the four units that have been procured, government has spent Mk1,333,800,000.
This figure is only the purchase price of the four units from CFAO/Toyota Malawi. It doesn’t include the cost of some modifications and security features added onto the vehicles that includes umber lights, carriers and other features.
The extravagant expenditure by government on these latest model of vehicles comes at at time when the country is facing acute food shortages that have resulted in some people in various parts of the country dying from hunger related illnesses.
The international community including the two Britton Woods institutions like the World Bank and IMF have warned the Malawi Government against over expenditure and extravagance.
