The Malawian government has discontinued its case against Vice-President Saulos Chilima after the state prosecutor filed a notice for the case to be withdrawn.
It gave no reason for the decision. However, a Malawian court has dropped all the corruption charges against Dr Chilima.
He was arrested in November 2022 on allegations that he accepted money in exchange for awarding government contracts, charges he flatly denied.
Chilima’s arrest followed accusations he had received kickbacks to influence the awarding of contracts to Xaviar Ltd and Malachitte FZE, two companies linked to British businessman Zuneth Sattar. Mr Sattar also denied any misconduct.
Many citizens are concerned about government’s conduct in terms of prosecutions for alleged cases of graft.
Since then, the vice-president has appeared in court on several occasion, although the actual trial was never initiated.
On Monday, presiding judge Redson Kapindu ordered his immediate discharge citing a filing from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) made last Friday of a “discontinuance of charges against the accused person in respect of three counts of corrupt transactions”.
The DPP now has 10 days to formally inform lawmakers of the reasons that led to the decision to drop the charges against the vice-president, as required by the constitution, the judge said.
Chilima’s lawyer, Khumbo Soko, expressed relief over the decision to drop the charges.
Critics of the Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera say the development is a further pointers of his difficulties in fighting alleged graft.
President Chakwera made dealing with graft one of his key campaign pledges in 2020 and in public speeches repeatedly speaks highly of his government’s commitment to bringing it to an end.
Under Malawi law, the president cannot fire the vice-president. He however fired ministers and officials who were named on corruption-related scandals.
Chakwera however stated that he would no longer delegate official responsibilities to Chilima while he was facing trial.
The promise did not last long and the president had started to assign official duties to his vice-president even before the case was dropped on Monday.
