ACB, Ombudsman tussle in court

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has obtained an injunction pending judicial review on the Office of the Ombudsman’s order for the bureau to pay its employee Mwangupiri Ngosi duty allowance from 2006 to 2011.

The injunction follows an August 9 2023 determination by Ombudsman Grace Malera that such payments include acting allowance from 2006 to 2011, duty allowance as head of the Mzuzu office between 2006 and 2020 and a 10 percent salary increase from 2006 to 2012.

But dissatisfied with the decision, the ACB, through its director general Martha Chizuma, moved the High Court of Malawi seeking an interim relief to stop implementation of the decision until a judicial review is done on the matter, a wish Judge Howard Pemba at the Lilongwe Registry granted.

In an interview yesterday, ACB senior public relations officer Egrita Ndala confirmed the development, saying the matter was in court yesterday for hearing.

She said: “The bureau obtained an order stopping the payment. The argument is that the bureau had already paid him and paying him as ordered by the Ombudsman would be unreasonable.

“The judicial review case was in court [yesterday] before Justice Pemba.”

The Ombudsman, through spokesperson Mandy Pondani, was yet to respond to our questions by press time at 5pm yesterday, but had earlier confirmed that the case was in court yesterday.

In its application for Judicial Review, the ACB argues that the decision was unfair and unreasonable as the information given during the inquiry was not enough to award the claimant twice.

The bureau also argued that such a decision was unlawful and in excess of jurisdiction in awarding Ngosi money which he was already paid, but also that Ngosi had an available effective and alternative remedy before the Industrial Relations Court from 2012 which he slept on.

Besides an interim order stopping implementation of the Ombudsman’s order pending judicial review, the ACB also prayed for an order quashing the Ombudsman’s directive that it should pay Ngosi duty allowance from 2006 to 2011.

The Office of the Ombudsman is a public body established under the Malawi Constitution section 123 to investigate any and all cases where it is alleged that a person has suffered injustices and it appears that there is no remedy reasonably available by way of appeal from court or where there is no other practicable remedy.