Friday Jumbe, Phillip Bwanali back in court for K11m corruption case
Former ministers Friday Jumbe and Phillip Bwanali will be back at First Grade Magistrate’s Court in Lilongwe on Wednesday Septmber 19 2018 for the stalled case in which they are alleged to have abused K11 million from government in 2004.
The funds allegedly disappeared from the Sports and Culture Trust Fund when Bwanali was minister of Sports while Jumbe was minister of Finance, during the United Democratic Front (UDF) regime.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested the two, alongside the then chairperson of the Sports and Culture Trust Fund, Vincent Mpaluko, for the offence.
In 2008, the court found Jumbe and Bwanali with a case to answer, but the case has dragged in the courts even after the State paraded 19 witnesses. The suspects are currently on bail.
The court last met in 2016 and entered the defence stage where Jumbe started to testify, but the case was adjourned.
Jumbe was charged with misuse of office and gross negligence by a public officer for advancing the K11 million to the Ministry of Sports which Bwanali allegedly took and gave to Mpaluko for the purchase of some footballs that were said to have been distributed to United Democratic Front (UDF) candidates in the May 2004 general elections.
Bwanali, a former UDF legislator for Thyolo North Constituency under UDF, is facing charges of misuse of office, gross negligence by a public officer in preserving money, theft by a public servant, uttering a false document and obtaining money by false pretence
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Apumbwa awa alipo. Alibetu Airtime. Kikiki
osamazuza antu monse muja bwanji simumanga
lol our justice system we even forgot about this!! when will muluzi’s case resume? 2024? but our pretty case thieves got 10 years case only took a month. these big pumbwa takes years just to say there was no sufficient evidence and to sue the state in return for whatever reason to drain the coffer deformation of character of loss of business interests as for our lomwe brother kikikiki
ACB and Judiciary credibility very questionable. Why are cases dragging that long? 2004 is long ago some of us have even forgotten that we had Phillip Bwanali.
Prosecutors are already under siege over delayed sentencing. But defendants are left with a feeling of unresolved as they wait for their sentence or trial to proceed up to conviction and sentencing. Surely, the delays have a detriment for the defendants and the justice system. The mentioned figures do not care that the delay in sentencing alone violates many of the ideologies of deterence in punishing those who are found guilty.