By Pemphero Malimba:
The High Court in Lilongwe Monday adjourned an International Monetary Fund (IMF) misreporting case involving former minister of Finance Joseph Mwanamvekha, former Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) governor Dalitso Kabambe and others to May 8, 2025.
Monday, the court was expected to make a ruling on an application in which Kabambe wanted the proceedings in the case to be stopped because other members of the RBM board had not been included in the charges.
The court was also expected to rule on whether Mwanamvekha should be brought back into the case and whether plea-taking should be undertaken by the accused.
The court dismissed Kabambe’s application, according to the State.
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However, the defence requested an adjournment of the case.
Defence lawyer Kalekeni Kaphale said the defence had requested the adjournment as there were delays in the proceedings.
“We were supposed to start at 10am, but the court might have been busy deliberating or considering late filings of court documents by some of the accused persons and the prosecution.
“Therefore, we requested if we could adjourn to a fresh date for some reasons, and the court allowed that the matter be set for fresh dates, namely 8 May,” Kaphale said.
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He said during the fresh date, the court will, among other things, make a ruling on Mwanamvekha’s application.
He said the accused persons had observed some lapses in the framing of their charges.
“The latest charge sheet is about a month old and in the last charge sheet, there were quite a few observations related to the framing of the charges that we really wouldn’t want to go into discourse about,” Kaphale said.
He added that the defence was ready to face any outcome of the ruling.
State prosecutor Kamudoni Nyasulu said the State wants Mwanamvekha back in the case as he was part of the alleged ordeal, but was initially discharged “because there was a mistaken belief that, at the time the charges were made, he was not the Minister of Finance.”
“However, the documents show that he was already the minister, as the case now covers the period from 2018 to September 2020,” Nyasulu said.
Mwanamvekha was discharged from the case in February 2024, but the State applied to bring him back into the case in August 2024.
He, Kabambe, former Deputy RBM Governor Henry Mathanga and former secretary to the Treasury Cliff Chiunda allegedly committed the offence to portray an overly positive picture of Malawi’s Net International Reserves and Gross Reserve Liabilities to the IMF.
