Malawi’s Ex-Information Minister Jailed Amid Concerns of Selective Justice


Blantyre, Malawi — Malawi’s high court has sentenced a former information minister and a subordinate to six years in prison for stealing computers and generators meant for a state-owned news agency. The punishments come the same week a presidential adviser and a ruling party spokesman resigned over corruption in the current government.

The sentences spotlight the government’s crackdown on corruption and concerns that it’s being used to weed out rivals.

Former information minister Henry Mussa and his director of information Gideon Munthali, both members of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party or DPP were sentenced this week, more than five months after their conviction on corruption charges.

They join several officials of the previous government jailed over various corruption-related cases, in a crackdown that the administration of President Lazarus Chakwera launched soon after winning the 2020 election.

This includes the arrest last November of the country’s vice president, Saulos Chilima, who allegedly took payments amounting to $280,000 and other items from British businessman Zuneth Sattar in return for Malawi government contracts.

DPP spokesperson Shadreck Namalomba applauds the crackdown, but said the problem is that the effort is marred with selective justice. He said most of the arrested are officials of the former ruling party rather than the current ruling party Tonse Alliance.

“Senior people in the Tonse [Alliance] government are resigning and are mentioning that there is gross corruption in the Tonse government,” Namalomba said. “Now what is ironic is that there is no one who has been arrested in the Tonse government, anyone who is answering a case of corruption in court and anyone who is imprisoned within the Tonse government.”

Namalomba said a good example of selective justice in the fight against corruption is the six years custodial sentence given to Mussa and Munthali although they returned the property they stole.

“We hear that people now, the Cashgaters, are being pardoned because they have returned money,” Namalomba said. “This is laughable. While others, like the case of honorable Mussa, they returned the money but he has been jailed while people who also defrauded the government are being forgiven. This is selective justice and it must not be condoned.”

Cashgaters is the name given for people who defrauded the Malawi government of an estimated $30 million during the administration of former president Joyce Banda, from 2012 to 2014.