Muluzi case not prosecutable, all parties to blame —ACB boss
Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director general Reyneck Matemba who is on recording saying he strongly believes the corruption case against former president Bakili Muluzi which now enters its 14th year needs a political solution because it is not prosecutable, has told parliament that all parties are to blame for the delay in concluding the perceived politically motivated case.
Muluzi, 78 is being tried along with his former secretary Lyness Whiskey as government claimed 1.7 billion Malawian kwacha ($12 million) in the former president’s account during his 1994-2004 presidency came from donors.
But court documents shows most of the funds were from his business empire and donation for his political party campaign from Taiwan, Morocco and Libya.
Matemba, who once prosecuted Muluzi before he recused himself in the case when he was ACB deputy director general, speaking when he appeared before the parliamentary cluster committee of Legal Affairs and Government Assurances said ACB, the courts, the witnesses, the Executive arm of the government and other stakeholders are all to blame for delay in reaching a logical conclusion of the case.
“In most cases, you will find that people are attributing the delays of the case to the ACB. So I said no. All the parties in that case are to blame. Each one of us has contributed to the delays in that case.
“Dr Muluzi himself has contributed to the delay. As ACB we have also contributed to the delays due to change of prosecutors and leadership in the bureau. You will find others are keen to pursue the case while others are not,” Matemba said.
Matemba holds the strong personal view that no one would come at the bureau and successfully prosecute Muluzi in the case
Actually, all presidents that came after Muluzi, the late Bingu wa Mutharika, Joyce Banda and immediate former president Peter Mutharika, have seen the now 78-year-old being involved in endless court battles in the matter.
His former boss director Lucas Kondowe had been on record saying he had serious “reservations” with certain aspects of the K1.7 billion corruption case.
The former ACB boss said before he joined the bureau, his opinion of the Muluzi case was like most people, “which was an opinion driven by the media reports that I had read from various sources.”
Kondowe said when he became head of ACB he requested to review the files to “understand the facts of the case thoroughly instead of just receiving the button and running with it.”
He said: “This is one of the best documented cases I have ever seen at the Bureau with over 16 files of material and a great amount of money spent travelling across the globe, conducting interviews and collecting data and various materials. Thanks to the British government which financed most of this work.
“I have also held private discussions with two of my predecessors who presided as DG(s) at the material time. I will not discuss the details of those discussions as they were private. I have enormous respect and admiration for these two great sons of Malawi for their service to the nation.”
Kondowe said:”I have expressed reservations with certain aspects of the case which I have discussed with my colleagues at the Bureau in great detail. We have had numerous debates on certain matters that I feel strongly about and would like these resolved as they would have dire consequences.”
The former president has always said the charges were politically motivated.
ACB directors that have overseen Muluzi’s case
- 2004 to 2006: Gustav Kaliwo, resigned shortly after he arrested Muluzi
- 2006 to 2007: The late Tumalisye Ndovi, rejected by Public Appointments Committee (PAC) of Parliament
- 2007 to 2012: Alex Nampota, re-engaged after he previously deputised the first ever ACB boss, Gilton Chiwaula in late 1990s
- 2012 to 2014: Justice Rezine Mzikamanda, returned to Judiciary, Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal
- 2014 to 2017: Lucas Kondowe, left after his three-year long contract expired
- 2017 to date: ACB acting boss and later director general Reyneck Matemba
But how was General Chigawa killed and why? Does ACB know. Any relationship with killing and that the General objected to the high level of corruption.
Dumbo was instructed.
Let off or not by ACB Bakili Muluzi is the Godfather of Corruption in Malawi. An evil genius who could have transformed Malawi into a true democracy but instead focused on bribery and corruption.
Matemba recused himself from this case in the not so distant past. Consequently, he cannot be trusted to opine on it. Why did he choose to prosecute a case from which he would eventually, recuse himself? He is compromised but he tried to bluff Malawians he had the integrity to prosecute the case. A conscious and independent organization ought to help. If the British have helped before, ask them to help bring the case to conclusion once and for all. It is a high stakes case.
It is the biased media which trumped up fake charges on Muluzi. The media is rotten to the core. They also trumped up corruption charges to Chaponda when not even a single penny had been paid on the maize from Zambia saga. No wonder Chaponda won the case. The media is devilish.
You cant teach new tricks to an old dog.
Matemba”s approach and methodology of how he does things at ACB are obsolete and old fashioned and so this renders him not fit for the job.
He never had the balls to conclude lots of cases and now he is pretending and giving all sorts of excuses while blaming the previous government.
He needs to go and pave way for someone who can bring new approach and ideas so we can see most of these corruption cases being concluded.
Muluzi is politically expired so is this corruption case. Bingu wanted Muluzi in a political museum the Bingu family now in the political mortuary APM in retirement and the Muluzi dynasty in the cold room Atupele no longer an MP both families have failed to fly it’s pointless to carry on with this case. We cab as well throw out the Chilumpha treason charges. A lot of money has been spent on these headless cases. All this madness was accrued to power dance.
Conclude the case.Muluzi has no case to answer!
If we managed the election case what is this case – would make sense if you wrote in Peter Muntharika era. Not now in Chakwera and Chilima era.
In any case, Muluzi will have to be compensated in billions.
Discharge Muluzi from this case which has no end in sight. The guy didn’t steal the money but was donation from well wishers. It was Bingu who connived with Gustav to embarrass Muluzi. In fact there is an audio clip on this . Top investigators at the acb failed to produce credible evidence until they all resigned from Acb and joined reputable international organizations. The acb Boss is very right ,the case is unprosecutable . Lucas Kondowe and Rezin MZikamanda from the Court himself failed to handle the case. What can Reneck and his team of investigators who lack training… Read more »