Deputy Immigration Dept chief transferred
Immigration Department senior deputy director general ( DG ) Crispin Suwande-Banda has been redeployed to the Ministry of Civic Education, Culture and Community Development as director of administration.
According to a reliable source in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security, SuwandeBanda is suspected to have leaked the information about the missing box containing 250 blank Malawian passport booklets to Parliament, which the department could have handled internally.
Immigration Department spokesperson Joseph Chauwa confirmed Banda’s transfer, which he described as normal.
He, however, said there was no any connection between the transfer and the missing passport booklets.
“I can confirm that SuwandeBanda has been moved from our department to Ministry of Civic Education [Culture and Community Development]. This is a normal departmental transfer, there is nothing strange,” said Chauwa.
On May 18 this year, member of Parliament for Mzimba West Harry Mkandawire (Peoples Party-PP) told Parliament that on December 29 2016, the department received a consignment of passports from Technobrain, supplier of the books, whose quantity was short by one box of 250 blank passports. The missing serial numbers of the books were from MW853501 to MW853750.
It was later discovered that one of the missing passports was issued to a Nigerian who posed as a Malawian from Mangochi with passport number MW853507 bearing the name of Vincent Banda and was arrested in South Africa enroute to the United Kingdom (UK).
On May 28, government sent a team of investigators to South Africa, to establish the cause of the scam, but up to now they have not presented the report on their findings to the public.
