Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau has arrested the country’s Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima over corruption allegations, it said on Friday.
Chilima was arrested on allegations that he accepted money in exchange for awarding government contracts and receiving $280,000 from a British businessman.
Chilima has appeared in court and had already been stripped of his powers in June when he was first accused by the Anti-Corruption Bureau.
His accuser, British businessman Zuneth Sattar was arrested in the UK in October last year and is now on bail.
He is accused of using connections with senior Malawi government officials and politicians to fraudulently procure contracts to supply goods and services.
The contracts are connected to armoured personnel carriers, food distributions and water cannons.
Chilima who came to power in 2020 as the running mate of President Lazarus Chakwera previously campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, promising to end decades of graft in government and ending poverty.
“Corruption has the power to rupture a country and its people beyond repair. Corruption has the power to make a government lose its legitimacy over its people,” the vice-president is quoted to have said in a 2021 Anti-Corruption Bureau newsletter.