CDEDI presses Parliament to summon security bosses over Tanzanian vessel

Governance watchdog CDEDI has written to Parliament, calling for security chiefs to be summoned to explain how a Tanzanian ship was able to enter Malawi’s territorial waters without authorisation.

In a letter signed by its executive director, Sylvester Namiwa, CDEDI said the incident has caused public alarm and raised a number of unanswered questions about the effectiveness of the country’s security agencies.

Namiwa said officials from the Malawi Defence Force’s marine unit, the Malawi Police Service and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) should have detected the vessel from the outset, and should have acted promptly before it crossed into Malawi’s waters and docked at port.

The letter puts fresh pressure on security agencies already facing questions in Parliament over the same incident, after an MP separately demanded that the security minister explain how the vessel went undetected by maritime authorities.

CDEDI is now pushing for security chiefs to appear before Parliament directly to account for the lapse, adding to broader calls for greater transparency over how the vessel was able to reach Monkey Bay unmonitored.