High Court cleared to rule in Mphwiyo, others’ case

Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal has cleared the High Court of Malawi to proceed with its judgement in a nine-year K2.4 billion Cashgate case involving former Ministry of Finance budget director Paul Mphwiyo and 17 others.

The judgement by a single Justice of Appeal Lovemore Chikopa dated June 9 2023 in effect dismissed an application by Mphwiyo and his co-accused for an order to stay proceedings of their case in the High Court.

The 18 wanted their criminal trial to start all over again on the basis that the new presiding High Court Judge Ruth Chinangwa had taken over the case, replacing Judge Esmie Chombo who retired.

Restarting the proceedings would have required the prosecution to reorganise all State witnesses and bring them to court again.

The appeal came after Chinangwa dismissed the application when it was made before her court as she felt it was going to be an injustice to all parties because some accused persons died while some entered plea bargain.

And in his ruling, Chikopa said while he agreed that the applicants were raising serious issues worth consideration of an appeal, like Chinangwa, he equally doubted if this was an appropriate case to stay the proceedings.

He said: “Truth be told, the applicants had plenty of time to have raised the appeal. Actually, it would have been disposed of had they acted with sufficient speed.”

Mphwiyo and 17 others are accused of defrauding the Malawi Government of K2.4 billion in the infamous 2013 Cashgate case. They were all found with a case to answer.

Following Chinangwa’s earlier ruling, principal State advocate Mathews Gamadzi said the State was satisfied with the judgement, arguing that the litigation process had to come to an end as it is costly to both parties.

But Mphwiyo’s lawyer Michael Goba-Chipeta, in his submission before Chinangwa, observed that there was a risk of injustice to the suspects if the court was to proceed to render judgement as the presiding judge did not get the chance to hear testimonies of witnesses first hand.

Hearing of the 2014 Cashgate trial was concluded in the High Court in Lilongwe in August last year and the court had indicated that it would pass judgement before March 2023.

In all, there were 19 suspects arrested and charged at the start of the trial, but five have since died while four were discharged and one was convicted and sentenced.

During the trial, the State paraded 35 witnesses and tendered 300 exhibits.