Malawi’s Vice President arrested over corruption charges

The Anti-Corruption Bureau of Malawi said on Friday that it had arrested and charged the country’s Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima with graft after months of looking into his actions.

When the watchdog first said that Chilima was corrupt, Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera told the whole country in June that Chilima was no longer in charge.

But at the time, the president, who has been fighting corruption, said that the Constitution didn’t give him the power to suspend or fire the vice president. He, on the other hand, stopped Chilima from doing his job.

The group that keeps an eye on corruption said in a statement that Chilima was taken to court to face corruption charges.

“I don’t have anything to say. “We’ll let the court do its job,” Chilima told reporters outside of court after he was given bail, according to the news.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau in Lilongwe, Malawi, arrested Vice President Chilima on charges of corruption.

The watchdog said that Chilima was rewarded for helping Xaviar Limited and Malachite FZE, two companies with ties to British businessman Zuneth Sattar, get contracts from the Malawi Government.

It said that it was looking into allegations that Sattar and other public officials in Malawi stole money from the government by influencing the way contracts were given out through the country’s public procurement system.

“On November 25, 2022, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilima on charges that he got a reward from Zuneth Sattar in the form of USD 280,000 in cash and other things between March and October 2021,” the bureau said.

In August, the Financial Times said that Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) was looking into Sattar for allegedly abusing Malawi’s public procurement system. The FT said that he had not been charged with any crime and that he had denied doing anything wrong.

On Friday, NCA didn’t answer right away when asked for a comment. Reuters could not reach Sattar right away to get his opinion.

In January of this year, Chakwera got rid of his whole cabinet because three ministers were accused of being corrupt.

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