ACB rejects prosecution authority proposal
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) says it does not support proposals to establish a National Prosecution Authority (NPA) as that would deprive the bureau of its prosecutorial mandate.
Speaking yesterday when ACB appeared before the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament in Lilongwe, ACB deputy director general Hilary Chilomba said taking the NPA route would mean that all the prosecutions will be done by the authority with the ACB only coming in to execute prevention and investigation mandates.
He said such an arrangement has the potential of bringing in unnecessary bureaucracy.
Chilomba said the current set-up of independent anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) has proved effective in enforcing anti-corruption laws.
The NPA was proposed by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) which called the need for an agency that would focus on crime prosecution after realising that there was a gap in coordination and collaboration of case.
But Chilomba said there is need for a study to establish how best the challenges can be addressed.
He said: “We are saying that more research should be done to show that the only way to resolve the prevailing problem is by creating a National Prosecution Authority.”
Chilomba further questioned the need for adopting the NPA while other States such as South Africa are opting for the current legal framework of ACAs that Malawi follows, despite having an NPA.
In an interview, committee chairperson Albert Mbawala said the committee had a meeting with the DPP on other matters and the DPP in passing mentioned that there is a proposal from their office to create the NPA to have the authority over the prosecution of all criminal cases in Malawi.
“We enquired from him briefly and he felt that there is fragmentation and that there is no coordination. So, he said that creation of this authority would help in collaboration and coordination of cases properly,” he said.
Mbawala said the committee will engage all the ACAs, which includes the Malawi Police Service, the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) and the Malawi Law Society for their input on the matter.
