President Lazarus Chakwera has come under fire from legal community which believes that Chakwera speech on the Martha Chizuma report lacks legal standing and that it is aimed at hoodwinking the public that he is fighting corruption and yet he is just good at rhetoric.
This follows Chakwera’s speech last night that has ignited debates among political analysts that has seen the Vice President chopped off from cabinet duties.
Legal analyst Lester Jere who is based in Uganda says Chakwera speech was directing the ACB to arrest his Vice of the wrong doings that he believes are worth jail.
“If you remember very well how firmer VP Chilumpha was detained during Bingu era, this is the same grand scheme MCP has used to finish him by among other things to put him under house arrest soon and Chakwera may even call for his impeachment in Parliament since they have a majority of MPs, he said.
Jere said you don’t need to go to a law school understand that the President overstepped his authority in his speech whereby he even accused ACB of hiding the evidence as if him was the Court of Law.
“Why must Chakwera be angry with ACB for hiding evidence? When has President Chakwera become the Special Prosecutor for ACB? He was even angry as to why the ACB has given the report to Speaker and Chief Justice as if the ACB report is for MCP and not for Malawians in general. ACB has done the right thing and we commend them because MCP and Chakwera wanted the report to victimize other innocent people,” said Jere.
Other legal analyst James Ayuba says according to section 4(4) of the Corrupt Practices Act, the only kind of reports the President is entitled to are general conduct reports of the the ACB’s business affairs.
“President Chakwera has no power to ask for a special report of investigation over a particular case. Yet what he asked for three weeks ago, perhaps out his own misapprehension of the law, was exactly a special investigation report. In this way, he asked the Bureau to break the law by supplying to him what he is not qualified to have and see,” said Ayuba.
He further said, to avoid breaching the law, the ACB gave him the general report without details of evidence and people involved.
Ayuba further says the man is calling the report substandard because because it does not contain what he wanted so that he hangs his opposition.
Malawians are waiting patiently to see the next move of Chilima following the fallout with Chakwera
