The Malawi Prison Service (MPS) has fired 14 officers and demoted 10 others for offences that range from phone smuggling to others.
A document, which The Daily Times has seen, indicates that MPS has been carrying out investigations into the issue of phone smuggling and mobile money fraud.
This comes at a time the Malawi Communications and Regulatory Authority has indicated that Malawians lose around $117,000 (about K117 million) a month to professional scammers who have built a network through which they exploit loopholes in the mobile money system.
When contacted, MPS spokesperson Chimwemwe Shaba confirmed the development but said he could not list down particular offences because the document in question was meant to be internal.
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“I cannot list down the offences as per individual [officer] because that is a leaked document meant for internal communication. It is a leaked document. It was not meant for public consumption. But just understand that most of them have been fired in relation to phone smuggling cases,” he said.
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Shaba also said phone smuggling and mobile money fraud have been a problem in the recent past.
Recently, a 24-year-old woman was arrested in Zomba for trying to sneak a cellphone into Zomba Central Prison.
Zomba Police Station spokesperson Patricia Sipiliano identified the suspect as Beatrice Kasakala of Chelewani Village, Traditional Authority Mchiramwira, in Thyolo District.
Every now and then, Zomba Central Prison officials have been confiscating mobile phones from the correctional facility.
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The then Homeland Security minister Jean Sendeza ordered the Malawi Prison Service to institute investigations into the issue of mobile money fraud, a decision she made after learning that some prisoners were peddling phones inside Zomba Central Prison.
Recently, a member of the Inspectorate of Prisons, Judge Kennan Manda, told the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament that a search conducted at Zomba Central Prison resulted in the confiscation of 450 phones.
The Inspectorate of Prisons is created under Section 169 of the 1994 Republican Constitution to monitor the conditions, administration and general functioning of penal institutions, investigate any matters connected with penal institutions, visit any and all institutions within MPS with or without notice and propose legal reforms to the minister responsible for prisons.
The Daily Times investigations once revealed that there was a tight relationship between some inmates and prison warders.
In June this year, MPS embarked on a project that will see it installing scanning machines in high-security prisons before taking the exercise to other prisons.
“Currently, we search inmates manually and, as such, the system is sometimes beaten,” he said.
Security expert Aubrey Kabisala said scanning machines are an ideal way of dealing with the problem of smuggling contraband into prisons.
“Most times, maintaining electronic gadgets becomes a challenge and, if this happens, it means they will go back to the same situation,” he said.
