By Cathy Maulidi
Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) former director general Reyneck Matemba has said the current ACB chief Martha Chizuma is the one who cleared the multi-billion Kwacha Malawi Police Service food rations contract, paving the way for Xaviar Limited, a company belonging to businessman Zuneth Sattar, to execute the same.
Matemba raised the issue when he was cross-examining State witness Jack Banda, who works as ACB Principal Investigations Officer.
When questioning the witness, Matemba wondered why ACB proceeded to clear the contract, worth $7,875,000, with Sattar’s company when investigations relating to Sattar were not closed.
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“Or were the investigations closed?” Asked Matemba, to which witness Banda responded: “No, they only stalled.”
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Matemba then said: “It is surprising that the investigations were not closed. They were still ongoing and yet the same ACB, when I had left it, cleared Zuneth Sattar.
“In fact, the reason why we are here is the case that I’m answering relating to procurement of food rations by the Malawi Police Service from Xaviar Limited. That clearance was not done by me but the ACB, with Martha Chizuma as the director general. They cleared this procurement,” Matemba said.
According to Matemba, he left ACB six months earlier, only for ACB to proceed to clear the procurement.
“The letter was written ‘For the director general’. Whatever officers do is done with the blessings of the head of that institution and that’s why we write ‘For director general, for solicitor general’ and the list goes on.
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“As head of the institution, you should be able to know what the officers have done. This contract was in billions [of Kwacha]; you should ask yourself whether the director general knew about this or not. You may ask that question to the ACB itself but what came out clear in the testimony is that it was cleared when she was the director general of ACB,” Matemba added.
He also wondered if ACB did its own investigations after a witness he cross-examined yesterday, namely Isaac Nkhoma, said the hard drive containing intelligence that he received from the National Crimes Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom was never tampered with and that that was what he brought before court.
“This is what I received from NCA; it was never tampered with as it was kept in a safe room and the keys were kept safe,” said Nkhoma, who works as ACB Principal Investigations Officer.
But Matemba said: “He had received intelligence from NCA, he never tampered with it and he came to this court and presented it the way it was. So the question we need to ask ourselves is: Did the ACB do its own independent investigations or they just transmitted what they had received from NCA as intelligence? The court will determine.”
Responding on the issue of Chizuma clearing the contract, ACB Senior Legal and Prosecutions Officer Moira Mlava said ACB would not comment on the matter that is before court.
“All these issues are issues that have been brought before the court as evidence and we do not want to be commenting on issues that are ongoing in court,” Mlava said.
But reacting to this, Chizuma, through ACB spokesperson Egrita Ndala, said the vetting and clearing of Xaviar Limited happened in June 2021 when Chizuma was just a month old in office.
“The Bureau was not conducting investigations by the time. Besides, the letter clearing the contract has a disclaimer which says that the clearance does not mean that the bureau is barred from conducting investigations when it receives new information to the contrary,” Ndala said.
Financial Crimes Court Judge Violet Chipawo has since adjourned the case to November 21 this year.
