By Staff Writer:
A Lilongwe based company, Paramount Holding Limited is at it again, this time it is embroidered in a 10 000 tonnes of fertiliser supply contract under the Affordable Inputs Program (AIP) with government.
According to an investigation by the Platform for Investigative Journalism (PIJ), in February, government and Paramount Holdings Ltd entered into an agreement to supply 10 000 tonnes of fertiliser without any contract.
There was also no approval from the Public Procurement and Disposal Authority (PPDA), claiming the supply was an adjustment to the previous season’s AIP contract for the supplier.
It is alleged that the contract was granted to Paramount Holdings Ltd, while the government was yet to grant letters of credit to the company.
PPDA spokesperson Kate Kujaliwa told PIJ that PPDA did not have information on the procurement given by the PIJ, suggesting the procurement authority was not involved in the procurement as indicated by our sources.
“We have been trying to establish the fact as per the questionnaire sent. However, the reference you made does not match any communication on our end. Would you be kind as to verify with SFRM on details to help us give you the correct information,” said Kujaliwa.
Paramount Holdings Managing Director Prakesh Ghedia asked for more time to respond to the questions on the matter.
“I am out of the country. Will meet when back,” he told PIJ.
Paramount Holdings is not new to controversial procurements with Malawi government. In 2018, the company was forced to pay back some MK200 million back to Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) after the Mobile Water Treatment Plant it supplied to the utility company turned out to be faulty and never functioned for a single day.
In 2019 as the government sought to purchase some 100 ambulances for K4 billion kwacha, Paramount Holdings emerged one of the two successful bidders, alongside Movesa. They were both asked to arrange for inspections at their cost. This was after the government had cancelled the original tender which was initially awarded to Vision International of South Africa, which applied to the government to supply the ambulances without any official tender process.
Paramount Holdings took the inspection team to Dubai – to see their suppliers, and some pictures leaked showing officials dining with a bidder – a conduct procurement specialists described as suspicious and an act of fraud.
