A can of worms was opened in 2021 by a forensic audit report that President Chakwera demanded when he came to power in 2020. The forensic audit which was carried out by a private international auditing firm, Delloit, exposed a web of criminal endeavors involving money looting, laundering and high-scale corruption which resulted in national assets like Malawi Savings Bank (MSB) being personalized away from the Government by DPP henchmen. Falsification of documents which was aimed at covering the crimes’ trail was also rampant and was elevated at a high scale when IMF was also given falsified documents.
The culprits of these nefarious endeavors included then Reserve Bank Governor, Dalitso Kabambe; the then Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank, Henry Mathanga; the then Finance Minister, Joseph Mwanamveka; the then Secretary to the Treasury Cliff Chiunda; the then Senior Finance and Market Operations Dealer, Leah Donga and the then Director of Financial Markets Operations, Rodrick Wiyo, among others.
Kabambe, Mathanga, Wiyo and Donga were arrested concurrently in 2021. They stood charged with four counts including abuse of office and laundering of about K8.3 billion, of which K4.3 billion was allegedly paid to FDH Bank without prior approval between October 2019 and June 2020, according to the state case.
However, the court subsequently discharged Ms. Leah Donga and Mr. Rodrick Wiyo following the prosecution indicating that the dockets did not contain enough evidence to sustain the charges against them, while the case against Kabambe and Mathanga survived as the court found that the two had a case to answer after the prosecution presented evidence that highly implicated them.
Following the discharging of the Ms. Ndonga and Mr. Wiyo, the former Reserve Bank Governor and his co-accused, Mathanga, attempted their chances by applying for their own discharge, citing delays due to numerous state applications to the court. This application by Kabambe and Mathanga to discharge them in the K4.3 billion money laundering and abuse of office case hit a snag when the Lilongwe Magistrate Court declined the application, ruling that there was still progress in the case.
The former Minister of Finance, Joseph Mwanamveka was subsequently arrested and charged following the arrest of the Reserve Bank officials for his suspected role in both the illegal transactions involving the sale of Malawi Savings Bank and falsification of documents at the central bank. Later on, the state also arrested the former Secretary to the Treasury, Cliff Kenneth Chiunda on charges related to the crimes revealed by the audit report.
The state has, since, applied for joining Joseph Mwanamveka and Cliff Chiunda to the Kabambe case in order to prosecute them jointly as their offences arise from the same set of facts and transactions.
While the cases were before the Magistrate Court, on Monday 23rd October 2023, the Chief Resident Magistrate Court in Lilongwe committed the Kabambe case to the High Court in the Financial Crimes Division, a specialized financial crimes court that President Chakwera recommended for establishment in order to speed-track crimes related to theft and abuse of public money among other financial crimes which have previously lacked progress due to high case log among others.
The application for a joinder, if granted, will result in Joseph Mwanamveka and Cliff Chiunda being added to the Kambambe case and will all be jointly tried in the specialized High Court Financial Crimes Division.
