Mwanamvekha wants his case dismissed
Lawyer for former Minister of Finance Joseph Mwanamveka has made applied to the Chief Resident Magistrate Court in Lilongwe to discharge Mwanamvekha from a case in which he and former Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM)Governor, Dalitso Kabambe are accused of giving wrong information to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to make the IMF believe that the government of Malawi was meeting conditions of the $108million Extended Credit Facility (ECF) which led to the IMF cancelling the facility.
In the application, the lawyer, Mercy Chijere, argued that the State has failed to comply with court directions regarding the service of disclosures. The State was supposed to serve the disclosures by February 10, 2022.
She said the State has failed to serve the defence with disclosures despite arresting Mwanamveka on December 7, 2021, and has been asking for an extension of time for investigation.
Chijere said the State is not ready to prosecute the matter and there is a need to discharge Mwanamveka to give room to the state to carry out investigations. She said her client is suffering because of the delays by the State.
However, the State has objected to Mwanamvekha’s application saying the investigations were ready yesterday. The state has since asked the court for three more days to file disclosures and serve the defence.
However, the defence said it is not the first time for the State to indicate that it was done with investigations saying on December 20, 2021, the State also said investigations had been completed.
The court has since reserved the ruling for July 13, 2022.
