Bureau declares SKC not under probe

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) says Vice-President Saulos Chilima is not under any criminal investigations as implied by a witness statement circulating on social media.

ACB director Reyneck Matemba clarified the matter after Chilima’s lawyers wrote the bureau on August 8 2018 seeking clarification on whether the graft-busting agency is investigating the Vice-President for any criminal offence.

Said Matemba: “We responded to their letter and informed them that according to our records, the Vice-President is neither under investigation by the ACB nor facing prosecution,” Matemba said in an e-mail response to a questionnaire.

There has been witness statement circulating on social media in connection with Chilima. The statement was recorded on February 28 2012 at ACB offices in Lilongwe when Chilima was the managing director of Airtel Malawi.

“This, therefore, means that the Vice-President was invited to the ACB as a witness to a criminal offence and not as a suspect or an accused person,” he added.

Chilima’s lawyer, Chikosa Silungwe, said: “We received the letter on Friday. ACB has told us he is not a suspect, he is not under any investigation and there are no criminal proceedings against him.”

The witness statement, which some DPP supporters are using to claim that Chilima is not clean, has surfaced at a time his United Transformation Movement (UTM) has launched a campaign to unseat the DPP in the 2019 Tripartite Elections. n