No Immunity for the Powerful: Kabambe Fails to Block Covid Prosecution
Former Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) Governor Dalitso Kabambe’s attempt to dodge prosecution in the controversial K6.2 billion Covid-19 funds scandal has hit a brick wall, after the High Court in Lilongwe dismissed his application for judicial review—a decision that keeps him firmly in the dock of public accountability.
In a damning ruling delivered on April 28, 2025, Justice Redson Kapindu shredded Kabambe’s arguments, declaring the application “misconceived” and legally insufficient, adding that it failed to meet the minimum threshold for judicial review.
“The application for permission to apply for judicial review is hereby refused,” ruled Kapindu. “Accordingly, the application for interim relief, including the prayer for a stay of the criminal proceedings, also automatically falls away.”
The court’s decision underscores that Kabambe is not off the hook, as the former governor had hoped to derail the criminal proceedings that stem from his role in facilitating an unlawful transfer of public funds during the peak of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020.
Kabambe, along with former deputy governor Henry Mathanga, RBM secretary Samuel Malitoni, and former Secretary to the Treasury Cliff Chiunda, is accused of pressuring the RBM board to contravene fiscal laws by channeling the bank’s profits into government coffers to support the Covid-19 response.
A Failed Argument of “Selective Justice”
In his court challenge, Kabambe attempted to shift blame, arguing that the decision to make the donation was a collective board resolution. He questioned why only a few individuals—himself, Mathanga, and Chiunda—were being prosecuted, while other board members such as Grant Kabango and Maria Msiska, who also backed the resolution, were left untouched.
“The decision to prosecute me while leaving out the others amounts to selective and discriminatory prosecution,” Kabambe argued.
But the State dismantled that defense, stating clearly that the prosecution is not about board participation, but about abuse of high-level executive roles. Kabambe’s statutory position, as governor and key initiator of the board paper in question, gave him a level of accountability far beyond mere participation.
Civil Tricks in a Criminal Battle?
Another major blow to Kabambe’s defense came from the court’s observation that he was trying to invoke civil procedures in what is fundamentally a criminal matter, undermining the seriousness of the charges.
Public prosecutor Kamudoni Nyasulu welcomed the court’s decision, emphasizing that those dissatisfied with the DPP’s prosecutorial choices should challenge it through Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee, not the courts.
“This ruling reinforces the principle that high office bearers cannot hide behind collective decisions when laws are violated,” said Nyasulu.
RBM’s Tarnished Legacy
The K6.2 billion donation at the heart of the case, funneled through the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA), was flagged in a 2020 report by the Ombudsman. It cited serious irregularities, maladministration, and a blatant violation of RBM’s operational rules—raising wider concerns about how the Covid-19 response was turned into a trough of impunity for elites.
Despite the court setback, Kabambe’s legal team, led by Fostino Maele, is yet to indicate their next course of action.
“We are reviewing the ruling and will discuss with our client,” said Maele.
But with judicial review now off the table and criminal proceedings back on track, Dalitso Kabambe must now prepare to answer—not evade—the serious questions about his role in one of Malawi’s biggest public finance scandals in recent memory.
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