Matemba, former ACB colleagues tussle in court

When the High Court of Malawi Financial and Economic Crimes Division reconvened yesterday, former Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director-general Reyneck Matemba tussled with his ex-colleagues on circumstances surrounding contract approval.

Doubling as his own attorney and accused person, the former Solicitor General is answering charges of failure to declare interest in the approval and vetting of the $7.8 million Malawi Police Service food rations contract awarded to a firm belonging to United Kingdom (UK)-based Malawian businessperson Zuneth Sattar.

Yesterday, the ACB paraded three of its staff as witnesses after two United Kingdom’s National Crimes Agency officers testified in the case being heard in Lilongwe on Tuesday.

In cross-examination, Matemba asked why the ACB vetted and cleared the police food rations contract when it was investigating Xavier Limited, a company owned by Sattar.

Responding to the question, ACB principal investigations officer Jack Banda told the court that the bureau started investigating Xavier Limited after the National Audit Office (NAO), between 2018 and 2019, submitted files to ACB about procurements concerning various companies including Xavier.

He said the case against Xavier was still alive at the ACB despite stalling and that by then, Matemba was heading the ACBand assigned the case to him (Banda) and ACB director of investigations Dan Mponda to probe.

Banda tendered in court a case file from NAO and said he had scrutinised and verified its contents.

He also told the court that alongside Mponda they travelled to the UK as part of investigations and on return submitted a report to Matemba. He said Xavier was one of the companies they investigated during the UK trip.

Banda further said the case was not completed, but ACB later received another allegation in 2021 where Sattar was suspected of bribing politically-connected persons and Malawi Government officials.

He said the ACB later searched the house and office of Sattar’s agent, Ashok Nair, where they found documents that Matemba had issued relating to Sattar. The witness tendered the documents as evidence in court.

One of the documents was a letter dated January 30 2020 in which Matemba, responding to some lawyers in the UK who had inquired from ACB about Sattar, indicated that Sattar was not under arrest by the ACB or any other law enforcement agency in Malawi.

Banda further said that when the ACB was headed by Lucas Kondowe in 2017, Sattar was summoned and questioned by the bureau in relation to Cashgate and was cleared.

Matemba wondered why Banda was telling the court that ACB had outstanding issues with Xavier when he never raised the same when the ACB was taking a statement from Inspector General of Police Merlyne Yolamu.

He said police proceeded to procure from Xavier and the ACB never questioned that.

Matemba also asked Banda who the ACB director-general was when the bureau cleared the food rations contract awarded to Sattar’s company.

But in an apparent response to his own question, he said: “The ACB, under the wise and dynamic leadership of Martha Chizuma, cleared this. Do you want the court to still believe that Xavier Limited was not cleared by the bureau?”

Banda said Matemba did not stop him and that as an investigator for the case, he did not know why it stalled.

Another ACB investigator Isaac Nkhoma earlier tendered as evidence a hard drive NCA had given to ACB. He said the hard drive contained files on allegations of bribes between Sattar and government officials and politically-connected people.

He said the NCA gave ACB the drive to use contents as intelligence, but when ACB carried out investigations it found that what NCA had shared was what was happening on the ground.

But Matemba wondered why the drive from NCA and its contents would be tendered as evidence by the ACB investigator when it was given for intelligence purposes.

The case has been adjourned to November 21 2023.