By Deogratias Mmana:
The Malawi Police Service Monday disclosed that they are hunting for former national budget director Paul Mphwiyo, who is reportedly missing.
“Yes, we are hunting for him. We are aware that he is answering a Cashgate case and judgement is about to be known. So, we suspect him to be on the run,” national police spokesperson Peter Kalaya said Monday in an interview.
This is happening at a time the High Court is expected to give its judgement in the K2.4 billion Cashgate case in which Mphwiyo and 17 others are about to know their fate.
He added that Mphwiyo’s wife reported to Lingadzi Police that the husband was missing on June 26 2023.
- Advertisement -
Kalaya said police have information that Mphwiyo boarded an aeroplane at Kamuzu International Airport on June 22 2023 and flew to Chileka International Airport from where he connected to Ryalls Hotel in Blantyre.
“He booked a room and was last seen walking towards the gate of the hotel, according to the secret cameras at the hotel. So, the missing happened in Blantyre,” Kalaya said.
According to Kalaya, the police are hunting for a missing person and also a Cashgate suspect.
The High Court sitting in Lilongwe concluded hearing of the 2014 Cashgate case last year and the judgement was expected by March this year.
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -
In May 2020, the court found Mphwiyo and others with a case to answer in connection with the alleged theft and money laundering of K2.4 billion of public funds, popularly known as Cashgate.
The judgement will be passed 10 years after events of September 2013 started with the shooting of Mphwiyo at the gate of his Area 43 house in Lilongwe.
Last month, the Supreme Court of Appeal allowed the High Court to give its judgement in the case after Mphwiyo and the others wanted their criminal trial start all over again because the case went to a new judge, Ruth Chinangwa, who replaced Esmie Chombo— who retired.
In his ruling, Supreme Court of Appeal Justice Lovemore Chikopa said while he agreed that the applicants raised serious issues worth consideration of an appeal, like that of Chinangwa, he equally doubted if this was an appropriate case to stay proceedings.
“Truth be told, the applicants had plenty of time to have raised the appeal. Actually, it would have been disposed had they acted with sufficient speed,” Chikopa said.
But Mphwiyo’s lawyer Michael Goba Chipeta, in his submission before Chinangwa, who later dismissed the application, observed that there was a high risk of injustice to the suspects if the court were to proceed to render judgement as the presiding judge did not get the chance to hear testimonies of witnesses first hand.
