Pressure mounts for Chizuma to deliver

 As pressure mounts on Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director general Martha Chizuma to show results on graft cases, long-time public prosecutor Kamudoni Nyasulu says lack of a clear strategy in recent years is one of the main reasons for poor performance.

Nyasulu’s sentiments mirror those of the National Elections Systems Trust (Nest) that despite a commitment from the government and other stakeholders to support the bureau with financial and human resources, there has been minimal progress in the fight against corruption.

“Nest is troubled with the lack of proper strategy by Chizuma in fighting corruption as she has relied on creating fear across the board. The ACB has resorted to wanton arrests that yield nothing more than a single court appearance followed by deafening silence,” said Nest a statement dated September 6, 2022 signed by executive director Unandi Banda.

He said while Nest appreciates the efforts Chizuma and ACB continue to put into the fight, “those efforts have proved to be less effective in the past 18 months”.

Banda said such a situation “casts serious doubts on whether the Director General is the right person to continue with the cause at this moment”.

On his part, Nyasulu, who was a special prosecutor in Cashgate cases, said the conclusion of corruption-related cases started delaying after the  2014 general elections due to, among others, lack of strategy on how to handle the cases.

The situation, he said, is worse now.

Said Kamudoni in an interview: “You will notice that with Cashgate we were able to finish cases in less than one year, until after the elections in May 2014. Everything then slowed down and has since got worse so that you even have Cashgate cases still in court.

“What is lacking? Strategy. Action Planning. Targets. Communication between Prosecution, Judiciary and Treasury on administrative and funding matters.”

Efforts to get responses from the ACB chief were unsuccessful.

But speaking in an interview in Mzuzu recently on the sidelines of a workshop,Chizuma said: “The public wants results today and now. They want an arrest and a conviction the same day. It does not work like that.”

Last month, The Nation’s analysis showed that ACB takes too long to bring cases for trial—a problem that experts largely blamed on hasty arrests before investigations are concluded.

We cited Cashgate cases that saw a flurry of arrests in 2014, the ongoing corruption cases linked to businessperson Zuneth Sattar and other graft cases since the Tonse Alliance administration assumed power in June 2020.

The analysis showed a pattern of leaving the bulk of those arrested on corruption-related offences in suspense in what Judge Ivy Kamanga calls “reasonable time after having been charged”.

For example, of the 60 Cashgate-related cases in 2014, roughly 40 never made it to the trial stage five years after arrests, according to a 2021 Global Integrity Anti- Corruption Evidence Project report titled ‘Law Enforcement and High-Level Corruption in Malawi: Learning from Effective Law Enforcement’.

Of those that proceeded to Cashgate trials, only 13 were concluded by 2019, says the report, authored by University of Edinburgh’s Gerhard Anders, whose work was supported by Britain’s UKAid.

In her 2008 paper presented to the United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders in Tokyo, Japan, judge Ivy Kamanga called for a proper balance between corruption prosecution and human rights provisions, noting that the Malawi experience is that corruption matters take a long time in the justice delivery system and often do not reach any conclusion.

Kamanga argues that the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi provides for the right to a fair trial of an accused person, which includes the right to public trial before a court of law within a reasonable time after having been charged.

Yet, the judge said, a lot of corruption suspects who were charged with offences under the Corrupt Practices Act have not come to any finality.

“The prosecution service is persistently failing to prosecute or conclude prosecution of such matters. This interferes with the suspects’ rights. As the Constitution provides for speedy trial there is a need for such suspects, once charged, to go through the criminal justice system,” said Kamanga.