In three days’ time, Paramount Holdings Director Prakash Ghedia along his fellow directors for the company are scheduled to answer criminal charges at a Magistrate Court in Lilongwe.
According to a court summons that Shire Times has seen, Prakash Virji Ghedia; Arvindkumar Atit Patel; and Suresh Khimji Jagatiya, among others, will appear at the court on 11th August where they are expected to answer three counts which include forgery; uttering a false document; and conspiracy to commit a felony.
According to a charge sheet attached to the summons, Paramount Holdings Limited participated in bid tenders in which a forged and fake Certificate of Manufacturers Authorization had been presented.
The said Certificate of Authorization relates to supply of Yamaha motorcycles in which Paramount Holdings posed itself as a licensed dealer in Malawi in response to Request For Quotation advertised to the public by JHPIEGO, a Non-Governmental Organization. The mischief was reported used across various institutions both public and private where the company has fraudulently won tenders.
In July 2021, Prakelsh was arrested by the Fiscal Police for a similar offence of using fake dealer certificate, but somehow managed to escape trial. His docket eventually went missing from the police custody allegedly after buying the police silence and inaction on the case.
However, Shire Times understands that this time around, the suspects’ case is undergoing private prosecution after the new Director of Public Prosecution granted a request for private prosecution to private prosecutors.
For years, Paramount Holdings has been embroiled in various corruption scandals in Malawi. Attorney General, Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda, said earlier this year that the company could be banned from doing business with Malawi Government if the forgery allegations lead to conviction.
Paramount Holdings thrived in questionable deals with the former DPP government. In 2019, Ministry of Health allegedly awarded the company a controversial K4 billion contract to supply ambulances after public officials were taken to Dubai on a trip sponsored by Paramount as the eventual winning bidder.
Barely last year, it was revealed that remnants of corruption in the Ministry of Agriculture told Paramount Group to supply 10,000 tonnes of fertilizer for the Affordable Inputs Program (AIP) even though the company had no contract with Malawi Government for supply of the fertilizer.
