The vice-president of Malawi, Saulos Klaus Chilima, was arrested on Friday morning November 25 in a corruption case. The accusation is brought by the country’s anti-corruption agency, which claims that he and several senior officials accepted money from a British company in exchange for government contracts.
It was in the context of a vast bribery affair that the vice-president of Malawi was escorted under guard on Friday morning to be questioned by the police. For several hours, as his supporters gathered outside the building in the capital Lilongwe where the interrogation was taking place, Saulos Chilima answered six charges, after which a court released him on bail.
The anti-corruption agency said it accused him of having ” between March and October 2021 collected US$280,000 in exchange for government contracts for two British companies owned by Malawian-born businessman Zuneth Sattar. The latter was arrested and then released on bail in the United Kingdom in 2021. Several dozen former ministers and senior officials are also implicated.
The powers of the vice-president had already been withdrawn from him in June when the investigation by the anti-corruption agency was announced. the President Lazarus Chakwera, with whom he was elected in 2020, does not have the power to dismiss him, since Saulos Chilima is in office under an elective mandate. Supporters of the vice president, however, believe this is a politically motivated prosecution of an adversary.