Court rebuffs MRA’s application in Chihana case
The High Court in Blantyre on Tuesday disagreed with an application by the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) to discharge a judicial review on the decision to arrest Yeremiah Chihana for tax evasion.
However, justice John Chirwa, who presided over the matter, set August 18 2015 as the date for full hearing of the case.
In June this year, MRA arrested Chihana—proprietor of YMW Property Investment, famous for valuing former president, the late Bingu wa Mutharika’s estate—for alleged tax evasion.
Among the charges were that he imported two vehicles without paying customs duty. However, Chihana argued at the time that his arrest was politically motivated because of his valuation of the Bingu estate that he estimated to be around K61 billion ($135.6 million).
The figure raised eyebrows about how a man (Bingu), who declared around K150 million ($333 333) at the start of his term in 2004, could have accumulated so much wealth within eight years.
The late president’s family disputes the figure, saying it is exaggerated.
Judge Chirwa then granted Chihana bail at the time and ordered a judicial review.
But on Tuesday, MRA went to court and asked the judge to vacate the order of stay and leave for judicial review.
In its argument in an affidavit, the tax bull gave a number of reasons which, it argued, necessitated the vacation of the judicial review.
Among them were that Chihana has not disputed that he committed offences under the Value Added Tax (VAT) Act, Taxation Act and Customs and Excise Act; that MRA is empowered by the Act to deal with tax issues and that he (Chihana) was not specific in his political meddling claims.
“There is no serious question to be tried by the court at the substantive judicial review as MRA clearly acted reasonably within its lawful mandate. MRA is of the firm view that its conduct cannot, therefore, be questioned as it is sanctioned by the tax laws of the land,” it argued.
One of Chihana’s lawyers, Zwelithini Chipembere, disagreed with MRA, saying there are many issues surrounding the case that necessitated the judicial review.
“For example, the vehicles MRA is talking about [Mercedes Benz registration RFZ 679 GP and Nissan Patrol registration CK 4575] were bought locally and we are ready to prove it,” said Chipembere.
Earlier, another of Chihana’s lawyers, Lusungu Gondwe, accused MRA of court shopping by obtaining a search warrant at Resident Magistrate’s Court in Blantyre, but got a warrant of arrest at the Resident Magistrate’s Court in Lilongwe, yet the case is the same.
Gondwe said he believed that MRA did that to suppress some material facts.
The lawyer also accused MRA of breaching the terms of the search warrant and warrant of arrest.
He said the former stated that after MRA had seized the computers, they should be deposited with the court and that after the arrest, Chihana should be brought before court.
“None of these happened as the computers were kept in its [MRA’s] offices while Chihana was locked at Lilongwe Police Station,” Gondwe said in his affidavit.
