Malawi’s president vows to crack down on graft after state resources probe

Malawi’s president has vowed to crackdown on corruption in the southern African nation after an international investigation into the alleged plundering of state resources by a British businessman forced him to shake up his government.

Lazarus Chakwera told the Financial Times that the law would take its course over allegations that senior officials in previous administrations, including his own deputy, influenced contracts in an abuse of the country’s public procurement system.

A Malawi-born British businessman, Zuneth Abdul Rashid Sattar, is being investigated by the UK’s National Crime Agency and Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau over alleged corruption in deals worth more than $150mn to supply ration packs, water cannon and other equipment to the country’s security forces. Satter, who has not been charged with any offences in either country, has denied any wrongdoing.

The graft allegations have sparked public anger since they come at a time when Malawi is in the grip of an economic crisis made worse by higher fuel, food and fertiliser prices caused by the war in Ukraine.

Chakwera, who took office in 2020 after becoming the first African opposition leader to defeat the incumbent in a rerun of a fraudulent election, said he would do “whatever is necessary to make sure Malawi’s trajectory is different from what the past has been”.

“Definitely, with all the revelations that have come to the surface, we would not want to go that route again,” said Chakwera, who pledged to end a cycle of graft that has plagued Malawi’s donor-dependent finances for years.

Sattar was arrested in the UK in October last year. The investigation was detailed in a UK court hearing in May when he applied to vary bail conditions but was denied permission.

Investigating the alleged wrongdoing is likely to severely test the capacity of Malawi’s anti-corruption institutions.

“It is a very important case for the country, if we are genuine about the fight against corruption,” anti-corruption bureau director Martha Chizuma said. She added that the case “has all the characteristics of state capture”, or manipulation of public institutions for private gain — a term popularised by South Africa’s descent into graft under Jacob Zuma.

The case reached the top of Malawi’s government last month when Chakwera stopped delegating powers to his deputy, Saulos Chilima, after the vice-president was publicly identified by the anti-corruption bureau as a person of interest in the investigation. Chilima, who constitutionally cannot be removed by the president, denies any wrongdoing.

The president also suspended his chief of staff and fired the inspector general of Malawi’s police after they were also publicly named in the report. The ex-inspector general declined to comment and the former chief of staff did not respond to a request for comment.

Chilima, who was also deputy to the former president but left the then ruling party in protest at corruption allegations, played a pivotal role in Chakwera’s rise to the presidency when they combined their parties to form a new political alliance to contest the 2020 poll rerun.

Chakwera said he still had the alliance’s backing to pursue his anti-corruption campaign. “When we have met to talk about such issues, there has always been consensus,” he said. “I do believe we are together in this.”

Two-thirds of Malawians surveyed by pan-African polling organisation Afrobarometer this year said they believed corruption had worsened in the past 12 months. However, Boniface Dulani, a political scientist at the University of Malawi, said that might reflect greater scrutiny of the issue since Chakwera came to power.

“Because people are freer to talk about these things, they are freer to report about these things,” Chakwera said. “We are determined to fight this and to make sure that we have laws . . . that protect Malawi’s wealth.”

Chakwera said alleged overpayment for procurement had to be tackled, particularly in light of the country’s economic woes. “When you are talking about the scarcity of forex and so forth, that is obviously a matter of concern, and particularly when whatever is there needs to help us procure needed services like medicines,” he said.

The central bank devalued the Malawian kwacha by one quarter against the US dollar in May and the government has applied for an IMF bailout.

Chakwera confirmed in a national address in June that the ACB’s probe into Sattar is also investigating alleged overpricing. Commenting on the probe, Chakwera said that “one feels sad, but at the same time, we are happy that we are dealing with these things, so that permanent solutions can be found”.

A lawyer for Sattar did not respond to a request for comment.

Chizuma has won popular acclaim for taking on high-level corruption cases, but said that she has also faced threats. She is also working with relatively tight resources. Although Chakwera’s government has increased funding, the ACB’s budget is about $6mn, reflecting stretched public coffers.

Because of lack of capacity “Malawians have seen people arrested before on corruption charges, and that is usually the end of it,” Dulani said. “We are basically dependent on the [UK] prosecution agencies” to investigate the current case, he added.

The UK National Crime Agency told May’s court hearing that it believed Sattar was organising protests to unseat Chizuma, a claim that Sattar denies.

Chakwera said that he had no evidence of the orchestration of protests but added that while “one might think that they can use [Malawians] for this or that — eventually, truth comes out.”

“I have no doubt that whatever happens, people will find out what the truth is,” he said.