The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Steve Kayuni has advised the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director Martha Chizuma to withdraw Norman Chisale as a key witness in the taxpayer identification number (Tpin) case which it is prosecuting.
Chisale, alongside Mohamed Shafee Chunara, Ahmed Chunara, former State Residences director-general Peter Mukhito, former president Peter Mutharika’s former personal bodyguard Norman Chisale and Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) Deputy Commissioner- General Roza Mbilizi are being accused of playing a part in the importation of K5 billion worth of cement from Zambia and Zimbabwe between 2018 and 2020 using Mutharika’s Tpin.
The State had planned to use Chisale as a key witness in the case.
However, in a letter dated November 9 2022, Kayuni advises Chizuma to withdraw Chisale.
“I, thus, strongly advise that ACB-Tpin matter should proceed without the three MRA managers for the reason that their crucial testimony should be secured for the Cementgate matter; reconsider the NPC [Norman Paulos Chisale] angle as the current form risks three crucial case files as intimated in above.
“The rest, namely, Peter Mukhito, Tadikira Mutharika, Thom Malata [deceased], Gertrude Mutharika, Peter Mutharika, and Roza Mbilizi can proceed as planned by ACB,” reads part of the letter.
Recently, High Court Judge Redson Kapindu allowed the State’s application to have the case of Ahmed Chunara, who was arrested early this year, be combined with the main case and that Chunara Senior join the case as the fifth accused.
