By Cathy Maulidi, Mercy Matonga & Isaac Salima:
It was a hectic day for the courts in Blantyre and Lilongwe Tuesday as they handled at least three high-profile cases, including politicians arrested for or answering various charges relating to financial crimes and libel.
In Lilongwe, former minister of Finance Joseph Mwanamvekha was charged with five counts out of the seven charges that have been shared among several accused persons in a case connected to suspected fraud involving K447.5 billion at Salima Sugar Limited.
In this latest development, Mwanamvekha, who is also vice president of opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for the Southern Region, has been charged alongside four others in the case.
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They include former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority, Collins Magalasi, former Secretary to the Treasury Cliff Chiunda, former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Lloyd Muhara and former CEO of the Greenbelt Initiative (GBI), Henrie Njoloma.
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Apart from Njoloma, who is reportedly at large, the other four were arrested on Monday.
The late Goodall Gondwe, who once served as minister of Finance, was also implicated in the case when Chief Resident Magistrate (CRM) Austin Banda read out the charges and their particulars.
The officials are accused of conspiring with others, including Chandrashekhor Ogale, Millind Ulagadde, Shirieesh Betgiri, Prasad Jadhav, Satish Tembey, Sachin Nikam, Dhiraj Nikam and Prashant Sharma between February 2011 and June 2020 to abuse funds at GBI.
The other counts, which have been shared among the other accused, including Njoloma, involve conspiracy to obtain a Government Guarantee without prior Cabinet authority, making misleading statements and fraudulent trading.
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Banda simply read out the charges to the accused and committed the case to the High Court, where he said that the accused would take their plea.
“This is not for you to deny or accept the charges; that will be done at the High Court, as I am committing the case there,” he said.
The State, represented by lead prosecutor Kamudoni Nyasulu, informed the court that it did not intend to introduce new bail conditions for the accused, as they are already out on bail in other cases and have not violated any of those conditions.
“However, we reserve the right to request additional bail conditions, if necessary, which can be addressed at the High Court,” Nyasulu said.
All the accused were then released on the bail conditions in their other cases.
Defence lawyer Andy Kaonga said that the defence was unaware of the charges and only found out in court.
In the same court in Lilongwe, UTM president Dalitso Kabambe, who is also former governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM), had a busy day in court, where he was answering three charges.
It is alleged that during Kabambe’s tenure as governor, RBM Executive Director of Corporate Affairs, Henry Mathanga and Manager of Financial Markets, Leah Donga, facilitated the opening of letters of credit for the benefit of some businesses, amounting to K13.6 billion.
During the hearing, CRM Banda also committed Kabambe and the others’ case to the High Court’s Financial Division.
The charges include conspiracy to use public office for personal advantage and money laundering.
Among other allegations, Kabambe is also facing accusations related to the alleged abuse of K11.4 billion in Covid-19 funds alongside Mathanga, Mwanamvekha, Chiunda and two others.
Speaking to journalists after the hearing, Kabambe’s lawyer, Fostino Maere, said there was nothing criminal about the case, adding that RBM had historically opened letters of credit for suppliers of essential commodities such as fertiliser and fuel.
“If this were a criminal matter, RBM would not have initiated a commercial case to recover the money. That is why we maintain that this is a debt issue involving companies that did not repay and it has nothing to do with Kabambe,” Maere said.
For his part, Director of Criminal Litigation at the Ministry of Justice, Dzikondianthu Malunda, said that the State would continue working on the case to recover public funds.
“We had five cases and four of them have already been referred to the Financial Division,” he said.
In Blantyre, the defence team for DPP’s Blantyre City South East parliamentarian Sameer Suleman told the court that the legislator’s arrest was illegal.
Suleman was released on bail Tuesday after being formally charged with libel.
However, appearing before Senior Resident Andrew Mmanga, one of the defence lawyers, Bob Chimkango, told the court that the arrest should not have happened.
Chimkango argued that Suleman was about to attend a parliamentary committee meeting in his capacity as chairperson and was therefore immune.
The court has since ordered the defence to submit a written request on the issue.
State prosecutor Damiano Kaputa told the court that Suleman had been charged with libel after allegedly uttering defamatory words during a media interview, against Minister of Local Government Richard Chimwendo Banda, Minister of Mining Ken Zikhale Ng’oma and Malawi Congress Party Director of Youth Steve Malondera.
DPP supporters gathered outside the court and sang songs in praise of the lawmaker, who is also chairperson of the Agriculture Committee of Parliament.
