ICAM Chief Executive Officer Dr Francis Chinjoka Gondwe confirmed to us that five members had been disciplined following investigations by the ICAM Ethics and investigations committee.

Gondwe said of the five, three were found guilty of using creative accounting and swindling of funds from their employers and have since been fined 8.8 million kwacha.

He said that, Deloitte company and Francis Madona were found guilty of using creative accounting, while another Masida Nyoni, was found guilty of swindling funds from his then employer Action Aid Malawi.

Deloitte company was fined 6.7 million kwacha, while Masida Nyoni was fined 1.6 million kwacha and an ICAM license suspension of 2 years. Francis Madona was fined 600 thousand kwacha and an ICAM license suspension of 2 years.

Said Gondwe ‘As an institute we would want to bring sanity into the profession. We received complaint and those complaints were thoroughly investigated. We would want our members to behave in an ethical manner’

An economist Hope Kawaye described as sad that well established firms and professionals could engaged into such fraudulent activities.

‘If big institutions such as Deloitte and highly qualified people are involved in such, it removes credibility from institutions, and people eventually, don’t trust them whenever they are conducting further reports.

“If professions can come in and intervene the way ICAM has done, this can be helpful even to the country in general,” Kawaye.

Meanwhile, other two members, the then acting capacity Chief Executive Officer of the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA) Raphael Kamoto and Director of Finance Elias Hausi were cleared, over a payment of over 2 billion Kwacha they made to AHCX limited for the procurement of 10 metric tons of maize despite failing to seek a no objection from Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority.