State wants Mwanamvekha, other back in IMF case
The State has moved to bring back former minister of Finance Joseph Mwanamvekha and ex-secretary to the Treasury Cliff Kenneth Chiunda in a case of falsifying information to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Mwanamvekha was arrested in December 2021 and charged alongside former Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) governor Dalitso Kabambe and deputy governor Henry Mathanga.
However, the former minister was in January this year discharged from the matter relating to transactions between 2018 and 2019.
But a notice dated June 25 2024 shows that the Criminal Case Number 19 of 2023 will come for hearing on August 5 and 6 and that the State will also apply to have Mwanamvekha and Chiunda added to the case.
Reads the notice: “Take notice that the State will apply to add as joint accused persons in this case; Joseph Mwanamvekha and Cliff Kenneth Chiunda, the matter which has been set for hearing on 5th-6th day of August 2024, at 10 in the forenoon in the High Court, Financial Crimes Division, Lilongwe Registry.”
Director of Public Prosecutions Masauko Chamkakala in an interview yesterday confirmed the development.
The two are accused of misrepresentation of figures purportedly to make the IMF believe that the Government of Malawi was meeting conditions of the then $108 million Extended Credit Facility (ECF).
In discharging Mwanamvekha in January this year, High Court Judge Redson Kapindu said the State conceded having no requisite evidence against him and that based on the same, chances of a conviction against him were “unrealistic”.
Later in April, the judge let off the hook Kabambe and Mathanga on the count of abuse of office.
The count was one of the two charges the duo faced in a case they are accused of masterminding RBM’s alleged misreporting of the country’s net international reserves and gross reserve liabilities to the IMF between 2018 and 2019.
The count discharge, according to the judge, was a result of the State’s failure to begin trial within 12 months as stipulated in Section 302A (4) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Code.
Kabambe and Mathanga were appointed during the Democratic Progressive Party administration which lost the 2020 court-sanctioned fresh presidential elections. They were arrested in 2021 and were later granted bail.
