18 to testify in Batatawala case
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has assembled 18 witnesses to testify in a corruption case involving businessperson Abdul Karim Batatawala and three others.
The other three are former Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services chief immigration officer Elvis Thodi, the department’s commissioner responsible for operations Fletcher Nyirenda and deputy director Limbani Chawinga.
In an interview on Wednesday, ACB director of legal and prosecution Chrispin Khunga said the majority of the witnesses to testify are public officers.
He said: “The case has over 50 statements, so, the 18 are what we have read and found we can use them.”
Batatawala and three co-accused persons were arrested and released on bail in December 2021.
The four are answering the first count of conspiracy to defraud by inflating the market price of 500 lockers procured by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services from Africa Commercial Agency under contract number IM/01/85 dated March 22 2010 valued at K2 950 560 per unit price totalling K1 475 280 000.
Batatawala is also answering the second count of money laundering, while Thodi, Nyirenda and Chawinga are answering the third, fourth and fifth counts of abuse of office, neglecting official duty and aiding money laundering, respectively.
Thodi is also answering the sixth count of giving false information in a public office.
The full trial is expected to start on February 28 before senior resident magistrate Martin Chipofya where ACB is expected to start parading its witnesses.
When the court convened on January 20 for plea taking where the four pleaded not guilty to all counts, Chipofya directed the State to serve the defence with disclosures by February 10 and that the defence should study the disclosures within 14 days before the start of the trial.
During the bail hearing on December 20 last year, lawyer representing ACB, Golda Rapozo told the court that the graft-busting body believed that Batatawala is a flight risk if granted bail.
She said the businessperson, unlike his co-accused, was playing tricks by faking sicknesses since his arrest to avoid being cautioned.
Rapozo further told the court that the ACB found an independent medical doctor from Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital who dispatched an ambulance to transfer Batatawala to the country’s major referral hospital, but medical doctors at Shifa Private Hospital in Blantyre where he was admitted to, refused to release him, saying he was critically ill. Batatawala was admitted to the hospital a day after his arrest.
But Batatawala’s lawyer Alex Nampota asked the court to release his client on bail, dismissing Rapozo’s arguments that his client was a flight risk. He told the court that his client was cooperative with ACB, has businesses in Malawi and that he has never shown interest to leave the country.
ACB arrested the four in December last year in relation to suspected corrupt practices in the procurement contracts for uniforms and other accessories at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services between 2009 and 2012.
At the time the alleged crime was committed, Nyirenda was head of research and planning while Chawinga was his deputy.
