Joyce Banda’s sons & Lutepo alleged to have been behind the arson of ESCOM house President Joyce Banda’s sons Geoffrey and Roy Kachale in collaboration with business magnet, Osward Lutepo are alleged to be the people behind the organisation of the arson attack that hit the countrys energy supplier, the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) headquarters in the commercial city, Blantyre, on 19th October, 2013 an insider to the plot has confirmed. A source who claims to be part of a quartet, two of whom are ESCOM employees that executed the plan to burn the revered power house headquarters. We have deliberately chosen to conceal their identities at this point in time for their own safety. According to the insider who was involved in the execution of the plot but now fears for his life says initial plans were to raise down the entire ESCOM House but that failed because the fire did not spread as per planned. We had help from IT expert who told us exactly what to do in order to ignite the computer system at ESCOM House then the fire would spread into the other departments burning down the entire building, said the source, who indicated, they later learnt the IT expert works at one of Osward Lutepos companies. We were shown the picture of the IT expert and have it in our possession but have withheld deliberately. That fire was started from 2 PCs that we programmed on the ground floor in the accounts department and a third one was programmed on first floor, he said. The source added, The idea was when the fire starts from the ground floor where most of the needed accounts and revenue information was, then the computer on the first floor will burst and spread the fire to the second floor burning the entire ESCOM House. The source however, blames it on the messenger who was asked place a tot of whiskey in the office on the first floor saying since he may have been doing it in a hurry, he may have placed it far away from the computer making it fail to ignite the computer on top floor. The action was successful on the ground floor because both PCs that we had set ignited, he said. According to our source, at least each one of the four people involved in the ESCOM fire got K1.5 million each and the messenger who placed the whisky tot got K250, 000.00. The four, got K750, 000.00 each in advance and the other half was paid after the mission. MEETINGS TO BURN ESCOM HOUSE Our source told us that several meetings were held at least two weeks prior to the burning of ESCOM however plans changed on Wednesday 16th October when one of the plotters Roy Kachale called the lead organiser to a meeting. Roy Kachale is son to President Joyce Banda. “Our leader said he met bwana Roy at his house or may be one of President Banda’s houses in Chigumula. That meeting changed the course of the burning plans as we were instructed to executive the mission within the coming weekend as forensic auditors were to visit ESCOM the following Monday,” he said. Our source told us that the arsonists then met on Thursday at Casa Mia Lodge & Restaurant where the final plan was laid bare. Casa Mia is in Kabula Hill, not far from Blantyre Adventist Hospital. “We had meals and drinks all fully paid for by Bwana Geoff who came to meet us there,” he said. Geoffrey Kachale is President Banda’s first son. “After the meeting, each one of us got the K750, 000.00 cash that was put in huge envelopes,” he disclosed that according to what he saw, “Bwana Geoff was driving a black, KIA Sorento vehicle without number plates.” DAY OF BURNING ESCOM Our source said all the burning for ESCOM House was done on Friday afternoon and were all just waiting for news. “We spent our evening drinking at The Giants, a drinking joint in Nkolokosa and we took the drinks for free as Bwana Roy was going to foot the bills,” he said. Our own investigations have established that the Giants Club in Nkolokosa, Blantyre is owned by one of the sons to President Joyce Banda. FINAL PAYMENT Our informant says that they got their final payment from the IT expert who works for businessman, Lutepo at Chichiri Shopping Mall’s Game underground car park. One of the ESCOM employees was given K200, 000 to give the messenger as he had already been paid, K50, 000 in advance. PLAN GOES WRONG & ROY KACHALE WANTS A REPEAT Almost a week after the burning of ESCOM, the team re-grouped and were to receive disappointing news that they had to re-do the job as the ‘bosses’ were not happy on the part ESCOM HOUSE that was burned. “Bwana Roy Kachale met us at Casa Mia where he appeared furious that we burned a wrong building. He said we were to go and burn again the building indicating the needed documents were actually in the building right behind the main ESCOM House.” According to the source, some of the members were not happy to enter the danger zone again and burn the remain buildings which Roy Kachale wanted finished. Only two went there to try and burn the specific offices but failed as a result of tight security measures put in place at ESCOM now. The second building was due to be burned last Friday but they failed due to the security situation. WHY KACHALES AND LUTEPO WANTED ESCOM BURNED Gathered details have revealed, Malawis corruption buster, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) were trailing and investigating a multi-million kwacha contract that was awarded to the first couples sons and Lutepo. According to a senior ACB investigator handling the case, a team of forensic auditors and investigators were due to visit ESCOM HOUSE on Monday, 21st October in a surprise visit. The investigator disclosed that among others, the ACB is probing the Kachales and arrested businessman Osward Lutepo in a business contract that the three jointly had with the energy supplier. According to the official, ACB would like to get to the bottom of a business transaction where the Kachales and Lutepo were awarded a tender to supply MK1.3 Billion worth of transformers to ESCOM. It has since been established that the said items though indicated by ESCOM to have been received were not delivered. According to the investigation documents that we have seen, the transformers were delivered to ESCOM on 13th September, 2013 at 14:33hrs. The exact invoice, they quoted ESCOM was K1, 356,000, 00 (K1.3 Billion). The ACB says it is investigating allegations that in the awarding of this contract, some procedures were flouted in favour of the two. IT EXPERT VIEWS ON FIRE FROM COMPUTERS Speaking in an interview with an IT guru, he corroborated the information given by the ESCOM arsonists. There are many ways to ignite fire using a PC. One of the most popular is to by-pass some regulators/¬capacitors within the power supply, and time up the PC in BIOS to wake up at particular time. After 30 seconds once the PC starts one by one of main board chips flies up and fire starts. “From the explanation you are giving me on this ESCOM fire, they may have used this method so that no one will witness the act, he said. He also explained that the arsonists may have even over clock the CPU once the CPU over heats it burst into flames. On the element of whiskey the ESCOM employee talked about placed on first floor, the IT guru said they may have used it to cause more damage to the building. One tot of whiskey is dangerous to a power supply. Thats why they say dont bring any liquids especially whisky next to our PCs, he said. The IT guru we spoke to studied system engineering, computer engineering, Microsoft technology specialist, Microsoft IT profession. and other short electronics courses.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 14:07:13 +0000
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