Government says Kasmbara’s law firm got K30m legal fees for case which never took off

Government is investigating former minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Ralph Kasambara for millions the ministry paid to settle claims for compensations and legal fees to various individuals when he doubled as Attorney General.

Among the payments under probe is the K30 million (US$71 770) which the ministry allegedly paid to Ralph and Arnolds, a legal firm which Kasambara partly owns, in claims for fees on a case Minister of Justice Fahad Assani says never took off in court.

But Kasambara, who was released on bail on Monday in a case he is accused of attempting to murder Ministry of Finance budget director Paul Mphwiyo, has described the probe as witch-hunting and embarrassing to President Joyce Banda.

In an interview on Thursday, Assani confirmed the probe on Kasambara and his law firm, saying many compensations government paid when he was at the ministry could have been avoided.

“We are compiling the awards made in the last two years. One of the things we want to understand in the investigation for some of these payouts is whether it was worth paying them at that time to people who were suing government.

“We have found a lot of cases which government could have defended but it did not defend and a lot of amounts were paid,” said Assani.

He said government has, among others, discovered a payment of K30 million to Ralph and Arnolds in claims for legal fees on a case the minister said never took off in court.

“Currently, we have come across a payment of K30 million made in September last year to Ralph and Arnolds who were representing HRCC [Human Rights Consultative Committee] and nine others in their challenge against the passing of the injunctions law.

“There was an application for judicial review on that case and the High Court referred the matter to the Constitutional Court where the case never took off. The K30 million was paid as claims of legal fees on this case which never took off because the Constitutional Court did not handle the matter.

“We are at pains to understand why this payment was made. This is a discovery that has startled us,” said Assani.

When asked what action government will take on the questioned cases, he said: “We are still compiling the payments made to which persons through which firms. We have not yet decided on the next action.”

The minister also said they are yet to come up with the overall amount government feels was unjustifiably paid out in compensations and legal fees.

“We will come up with the specifics when the analysis is done. But it would seem in our view that a lot of monies were unjustifiably paid to some individuals and companies,” said Assani.

But on Thursday Kasambara described the probe as political witch-hunting and childish, saying the investigation would only embarrass the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs and President Banda.

“It is unfortunate that the Ministry of Justice has gone into witch-hunting. I never handled any matter to do with Ralph and Arnolds. There was an agreement at the Ministry of Justice that any matter to do with Ralph and Arnolds would be handled by another officer and I refused to handle such matters to avoid the appearance of bias in the handling of those matters,” said Kasambara.

He said the settling of claims of legal fees from Ralph and Arnolds on HRCC’s challenge against the Injunctions law was handled by chief state advocate Dr. Zolomphi Nkowani.

“They shouldn’t be asking me because I never handled that matter. It is the chief state advocate Dr. Nkowani, as in-charge of litigation, who handled that matter. I was aware that people would want to talk about issues of favour for the firm I worked for before. There was a court order to pay legal fees which we call party and party costs.

“Lawyers from the Ministry of Justice and lawyers from Ralph and Arnolds agreed to settle the matter out of court after government had admitted that it was in the wrong on the passing of the Injunctions law and moved to reverse the process.

“There was already a lot of work which was done on the case including the obtaining of a court injunction and exchange of paper work between the lawyers. It is, therefore, not correct to say that the case did not take off in court. Those are irresponsible remarks,” said Kasambara.

He said government should challenge the court order if it feels the K30 million paid to Ralph and Arnolds is on a higher side, as what is high or low is subjective.

Nkowani could not be reached on his phone yesterday.

On the other compensation payouts, Kasambara said he worked at the Justice Ministry as a professional, saying it is not unusual for lawyers not to agree on professional judgements.

“They are now looking at what Kasambara did when he was Attorney General because they don’t have evidence for the attempted murder case. They are embarrassing the Ministry of Justice and the President herself. I was not working at the ministry as Kasambara myself.

“You can’t question my capacity when I was working as a professional. I never witch-hunted my predecessors. This is the most childish thing the Ministry of Justice can do,” said Kasambara.

He said lawyers do not only consider availability of defence to defend a case in court, as other factors including political, economic and legal considerations are also made.

“Sometimes you settle off cases for political reasons to protect the image of government or on legal basis to avoid having more people making similar claims. You also look at the amount being claimed. It may not be financially reasonable to start challenging a claim of K10 000 in Chitipa and spend a lot of money just to defend that case,” said Kasambara.

Early this year, Weekend Nation reported that government had depleted the K1.1 billion budget for compensations in the 2012/13 fiscal year.

Some of the compensations which government reportedly paid relate to cases concerning breach of contract with individuals and companies outside government as well as human rights violations such as unlawful arrests.

According to a payment schedule Weekend Nation has seen, K1 624 125 983.87 had been paid in compensations by February end this year against the budgeted K1 129 839 325, meaning that by mid-year, government had overspent this vote by K500 million.

Some of the claims include compensations to former public servants such as former Admarc chief Charles Matabwa (K82 million), former Anti-Corruption Bureau director Alex Nampota (K70 million), former Reserve Bank of Malawi governor Dr Perks Ligoya (K49 million), former MBC head Bright Malopa (K40 million) and former Malawi Revenue Authority commissioner general Lloyd Muhara (K25 million).

But Kasambara distanced himself from these compensations, saying negotiations did not involve the Ministry of Justice alone but also the lawyers from the institutions where the officers worked.

Revelations of the probe come three days after Kasambara sued President Joyce Banda’s People’s Party (PP) and obtained a court injunction stopping his suspension as the party’s director of legal affairs.

Earlier this year, the current Attorney General Anthony Kamanga asked for renegotiation of the claimed amounts.