High-profile graft cases dropped

Malawi’s Government has ordered prosecutors to drop two major financial crime cases against 10 suspects, including sitting Cabinet Ministers and the country’s top fiscal officials, despite it pursuing a new programme with the IMF. The Mail & Guardian reports that the office of the DPP discontinued criminal proceedings against former Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) Governor Dalitso Kabambe, his deputy Henry Mathanga, former Finance Minister Joseph Mwanamvekha, secretary to the Treasury Cliff Chiunda and Cabinet Minister Jean Mathanga, among others. The two cases had been running for nearly five years and involved charges of abuse of office and breaches of procurement procedures at the centre of Malawi’s fiscal architecture. The discontinuation came just months after Mathanga was reinstated as deputy governor of the Reserve Bank and Cliff Chiunda confirmed as secretary to the Treasury. This also comes after Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party won Malawi’s September 2025 general election, defeating incumbent Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party. Mutharika’s return to the Presidency ended five years of Malawi Congress Party rule, under which most of the criminal proceedings had been filed and prosecuted. The prosecutions, launched between 2020 and 2023, were framed publicly as anti-corruption efforts but critics alleged they were also instruments of political marginalisation.