…controversial Zamba to coordinate anti corruption efforts
President Lazarus Chakwera has fired Steven Kayuni as Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) as a sacrificial lamb at the altar of covering up who plotted and executed the arrest of Martha Chizuma, the Director of General of the Anti Corruption Bureau.
Ironically, the President, in his trademark of chaotic decision making, has asked Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba to chair an interdepartmental meeting of justice delivery agencies. Zamba has been named in a corruption scandal at National Oil Company of Malawi where she allegedly tried to influence contracts in favour of her Nigerian friend “Chief.”
Chizuma has not been fired, but the President had warning over justice system individuals who want to run agencies as “personal colony and empire” will be fired.
This is a indirect reference to Chizuma as the same accusations had come from Kayuni who wrote a scathing letter leaked to the public over what he termed isolated ACB operations.
Kayunis firing does not answer the fundamental question on who ordered arrest of Chizuma and the President has been scared to touch the ACB Director as donors promised him “sanctions and travel bans” should he fire her.
The acting UK High Commissioner to Malawi Sophia Willits-King on Tuesday told Justice Minister Titus Mvalo that the UK would want to see “Prosecutions that results into convictions.”
Chakwera said he wants agencies to collaborate in the fight against corruption though it has been obvious since the case of Zuneth Sattar emerged that the Attorney General Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda, then DPP Kayuni and the Malawi Police Service were working overtime to undermine the ACB case against Sattar.
The President is also keeping in office a dozen officials from his MCP who have been named in corruption investigations which contradicts his public pronouncements that he is fighting corruption.
Turning to the Malawi Police Services, Chakwera blamed Deputy Inspector Generals Happy Mkandawire and Casper Chalera for the arrest but took a pinch at what Mkandawire told the Commission of Inquiry that his order for the Police to release Chizuma was unlawful.The Investigator can confidently say the Police officers cannot be fired as they would reveal who gave the order to arrest Chizuma, which will end up at State House. All the meetings reported in the Commission of Inquiry report did not take place , we found out from senior Police officials.
President Chakwera: set Malawi free from corrupt ‘colonies and empires’
Analysis by Kondwani Munthali, Managing Editor
President Lazarus Chakwera is working to salvage a very damaged legacy. As long as he keeps most people named in corruption investigations, the public will not take him seriously, no matter how many national addresses he makes.
He has made too many promises and very little outcomes. He is like some injured lion roaring, and antelopes continue to play unperturbed nearby.
President Chakwera roars, takes a few steps, the corrupt meet and laugh in his face. Tommorrow they go and steal. No action on Covid 19 funds, nobody arrested in the K750 million AIP funds, nobody arrested in Admarc maize scandal. SPC Zamba in office after being named at a Parliamentary inquiry and now only Kayuni seemed to have made a mistake.
The in action supercedes all his promises. He is a lame duck President, whose legacy is etching closer to be the one who presided over the most corrupt regime since independence.
Otherwise his statement, as usual missed what the public expects of him, to act against the corrupt and set Malawians free of “colonies and empires” of corruption, to borrow his own words.
These are the ones damaging his legacy.
