IPC likely met, says ACB witness in Batatawala case 

An Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) witness said on Thursday that there is a probability that an internal procurement committee (IPC) at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services met in his absence to discuss a contract.

The department’s former assistant chief immigration officer (legal) Tonda Chinangwa told the Blantyre Senior Resident Magistrate’s Court in cross-examination that there were times the IPC would sit in his absence.

ACB is basing its case on the fact that a contract to Africa Commercial Agency, owned by businessperson Abdul Karim Batatawala, was awarded illegally.

Batatawala, alongside former chief immigration officer Elvis Thodi, the department’s commissioner responsible for operations Fletcher Nyirenda and deputy director Limbani Chawinga, are accused of conspiracy to defraud by inflating the market price of 500 lockers procured by the department from Batatawala’s firm.

In his testimony guided by ACB director general Martha Chizuma, Chinangwa said he was at Immigration in March 2010 and was part of IPC, but said he could not recall having been involved in the extension of a contract to Africa Commercial Agency.

The witness said he first saw a copy of the bid documents regarding the contract when he was summoned at ACB for the case in court now, adding the copy he was shown was not complete as it had some documents missing.

In cross-examination by one of the lawyers representing Batatawala, Alex Nampota, Chinangwa was asked if there was a possibility that the extension of the contract may have been discussed in his absence. The witness said that was possible.

On whether it was right for authorities to start accusing people or prosecuting them for missing documents, the witness opted not to comment on that.

Nampota further showed the witness the missing documents, but he still insisted he did not see them at the time he was called at the bureau.

The witness admitted that his ignorance about this contract would not mean there was no IPC meeting that took place.

But Chinangwa told the court that he was knowledgeable of the initial contract to Africa Commercial Agency of April 21 2009 but said the copy he was given, at the time of his employment at the Immigration and as member of IPC, was incomplete as some documents were missing.

Earlier, another ACB expert witness from Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS), Stephen Chalimba, told the court that he received two filing cabinets for testing and the testing was done as a private job requested by the ACB and not as part of MBS regulatory work.

The witness, a PhD holder in metallurgical engineering, told the court he tested the two cabinets and they passed the impact test and the fire test, but they failed the thickness test.

Africa Commercial Agency was awarded the extended contract by the Immigration under number IM/01/85 dated March 22 2010 valued at K2 950 560 per unit price, totaling K1 475 280 000.

Presiding magistrate Martin Chipopya adjourned the case to September 6 to 8 this year for continued hearing.