NIS a tool for political terror in Malawi

According to a former National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) officer, the newly reconstituted National Intelligence Service (NIS) is geared to serve as a tool for political oppression and terror rather than serve for the common good of Malawians.

In a series of “One on One” interviews carried by another Malawi on-liner – the MaraPost – the unidentified former agent revealed in an interview that the newly reconstituted NIS cannot benefit the ordinary Malawian because it:

·        is failing to work professionally as an intelligence unit that can benefit the nation;

·        is no longer able to advise the policy makers truthfully and without bias;

·        is filled with people who have been appointed for appeasement and blind political loyalty rather than their skills in intelligence;

·        is headed by a man – Binton Kutsaira – who has no intelligence background whatsoever, and

·        lacks a defined operational framework and set-up, which makes it institutionally weak.

The agent further asserts that the fact that since the Director of the agency is no longer the head of National Security undermines his position and influence as this makes the Army General and the Inspector General of Police more powerful than the head of this unit.

The result of the above shortfalls according to this agent is that the president is getting half-baked intelligence that is often cooked up to justify the existence of the agency in the president’s eye.

Again, he argues that the president is more or less using the agency to cook up coup d’état stories that fail to prove their mettle.

The appointment of a politician – Binton Kutsaira – to head the agency is a second in the history of Malawi. Previously, in the country’s early history as an independent country, its predecessor was headed by Focus Gwede. His tenure was disastrous for both Malawi as a nation and for Gwede as a person.

Kutsaira is closely associated with the State House Valet Paulos Chisale who, it was alleged, drove the assassins that were apprehended and questioned by lawyer Ralph Kasambara; which resulted in Kasambara’s arrest.

It remains to be seen how Kutsaira will perform as head of Malawi’s spy machine given his lack of experience, personal political ambitions, lack of scruple as gossiped by the president in waiting Prof Arthur Peter Mutharika and given that the president is bent on using the agency as a tool for suppressing dissent and political opponents.

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