Police risk contempt of court over promotions
Malawi Police Service risk contempt of court for failure to comply with a court judgement in favour of 50 graduate officers who sued over promotion grievances.
In February this year, High Court of Malawi Judge Kenyatta Nyirenda ordered the service to promote 53 graduate police officers, who dragged the Inspector General (IG and Attorney General (AG) to court over salary and promotion disparities based on a 2017 functional review.
But eight months after the judgement, it has emerged that police have partially complied with the judgement.
The court gave the police 30 days to, among others, change the officers’ grades and also pay them arrears, which is the difference between new and old salaries from July 2017.
In an interview last week, one of the affected officers Chitenthe Kachali said: “I can confirm that they only changed our grades two steps upwards, but we have not been promoted to corresponding ranks and we have also not received arrears.
“With these delays, we are planning to ask our lawyer to sue for contempt of court.”
But in an interview yesterday, National Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya said the matter was water under the bridge as the service has complied with the court order save for a few minor issues.
He said: “We have complied with the court order. The promotion was effected. The remaining part is quite small and we are working on it. It has taken time because we are engaging other offices as well.”
A police functional and structural review conducted in 2017 led to promotions for several officers and their grades were changed but the 50 officers, who had self-upgraded to degree level while in the service, were left-out leading to a court battle.
In his 10-page judgement, Nyirenda faulted the police for not considering the 50 graduates.
He ordered the police to promote the aggrieved from I and H to grades G and F, respectively, within 30 days from February 8 2022.
In addition, the court also ordered that claimants be paid salary arrears from July 1 2017.
In May this year, the AG filed in the court seeking the stay of the order but his prayer was declined.
