BWB third fraud suspect denied bail
The Blantyre Magistrate’s Court yesterday denied bail a third suspect in the Blantyre Water Board (BWB) fraud case.
The suspect, Paul Mang’ani, who was on the run since last November and is father-in-law to second accused Brian Makote, was arrested last Saturday. He is now remanded to Chichiri Prison alongside Makote, a former BWB corporate client officer, and first accused Oscar Kapito.
Senior resident magistrate Viva Nyimba denied him bail twice on the premise that he was a flight risk, having done so before.
Before the ruling, the court paraded the last State witness in the case, detective Joseph Nkuna, who narrated how Mang’ani took part in stealing the money by, among other things, keeping some of the money in his accounts while his son-in-law fled the country.
“The suspect never surrendered himself to police though he knew he was wanted by the police. The court needs to ensure the case doesn’t delay and that trial is done without him running away. It is, therefore, in the interest of justice to deny him bail,” said Nyimba.
The magistrate has since ordered the defence to file written submissions within two weeks and thereafter, the State should do the same within a week after receiving submissions from the defence.
“Let me advise both parties to ensure the case does not delay. Any delay in filing the submissions will delay my calendar. We have so many cases to attend to, the court is already understaffed. Even when we made an adjournment in the afternoon there were other cases that needed my attention,” he stated.
Nyimba then adjourned the case to February 23, for the court to give its determination on whether the three have a case to answer or not .
The three are answering charges of money laundering and theft to which they have all pleaded not guilty.
They are suspected to have opened a parallel welfare fund account at Nedbank where four cheques from Malawi Police Service (MPS) and State Residences amounting to K150 million were deposited between May and August 2017.
The fraud was exposed in August 2017 after Makote allegedly withdrew K20 million from the account before fleeing to Botswana through Mwanza border. He was later arrested by International Police (Interpol) in that country.
Kapito, suspected to have been a signatory of the parallel account, was the first to be arrested last September while Makote first appeared before the same court after he was extradited to the country end September last year. n
