On March 5, 2025, High Court Judge Violet Chipawo ruled that former Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director-General Reyneck Matemba must answer charges of failing to declare interest in the $7.8 million Malawi Police Service food rations contract awarded to Zuneth Abdul Rashid Sattar ‘s UK-based firm, Xavier Limited.
Matemba, the former Solicitor General and Secretary for Justice, was arrested on August 5 2022, he is currently out on bail.
But how did he got involved with Zuneth Sattar?
According to the ruling, the State paraded 15 witness to prove the case against Matemba. One of the witnesses was ACB principal investigating officer Steven Goru.
He told the court that he was one of the officers that investigated Matemba, after being incorporated into the investigating team in December 2021, though the allegations were received in October the same year.
Goru said the allegations were that Sattar and his agent Ashok Nair were bribing Politically Exposed Persons (PEPS) and public officers in order to get contracts with the Malawi government for his companies one of which was Xavier Limited.
At that time, according to the ruling, Sattar was also known as Josan or JK and was close associate to Matemba.
Goru’s investigations, centred on an external hard drive given by another investigator Isaac Nkhoma, which was a copy of the original which the ACB had received from the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
He said he concentrated on the name of Matemba as it appears in the charts and it showed that he was using phone number 0888979590 and that the other number 0994338882 was registered as Josan on WhatsApp but it belonged to Sattar.
However, it was later discovered that Sattar’s numbers was registered in the name of Jane Jere.
When contacted, Jere said she did not know the number and said at one time, she came to Lilongwe to see a sick relative and she then discovered that she had lost her national Id when she returned to Mzimba.
Jane Jere said she had to apply for another national Id which was issued in November 2021.
When shown phone number 0994338882 during testimony, Jere told the court that she does not know the number and that she has never used that number. She further said she does not know Zuneth Sattar or the Accused. She also told the court that she does not know anything about MPS and Xavier Limited.
Goru told the court that Sattar was also communicating with other people using the same Airtel line number and that some of the people confirmed the same number. One of such people was McFarlen Jere from Malawi Police Service (MPS)
According to the extracted conversations, Matemba and Sattar had been acquaintances from 2014. They would call each other brother.
He further told the court that on June 5 2021, while Matemba was in Mangochi attending a a board meeting for the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA) Board with procurement of food ration from MPS on the agenda, Satttar forwarded the accused’s phone number (0888979590) to Ashok with instruction ‘Matemba 5K’, which the investigating team understood this to mean 5, 000 USD.
The witness further told the court that on June 27 2021, Sattar inquired from Matemba about the ration, in which the accused response was that he has made a follow up and that the team from the ACB was in Mangochi and that he will provide feedback later.
“On 29th June 2021, the ACB wrote a letter to the PPDA granting no objection and PPDA wrote Malawi Police Service indicating that the contract had to be reviewed by the Solicitor General. On 14 July 2021, Sattar forwarded a message to Matemba which showed that documents were submitted to the Solicitor General but the reporter was not able to meet the solicitor general as he was out of office.
Then later on the same day, the Accused sent to Sattar a photo of documents from Malawi Police Service and Sattar acknowledged with a thank you.’ He went further to say that on 15th July, 2021, the Accused shared a document from Ministry of Justice to the Malawi Police Service. This he said was a document relating to a contract for the delivery of dry ration food packs.
“Goru went further to say that the documents were granting Malawi Police Service a go ahead with the contract as long as conditions in the letter were fulfilled. He also said that on the same day, the Accused wrote Sattar informing him that he had written Malawi Police Service and delivered the letter,” reads part of the ruling
On conversations between Sattar and the accused, the witness told the court that when the matter is considered in the light of the issues, it is found that right from where Sattar asked about updates on the ration, Matemba was able to give correct account of movement of ACB officers.
On things that were happening behind the scenes, Goru said that what happened in this case does not reflect well on how procurement is supposed to be done.
He told the court that it was the supplier who approached Malawi Police Service telling them that their ration is low and also that there was communication between Sattar and the IG and the Legal Officer.
He said after analysing the audios, Goru said the ACB arrested Matemba.
McFarlen Jere
A retired Police officer, Jere was at the time of the alleged commission of the offence, Officer In charge Quartermaster. His duties included receiving goods purchased by the MPS, raising requisitions for goods needed by MPS, keeping stores and distributing goods to end users.
According to Goru, the contract began with Sattar contacting Jere and asking him to raise a requisition for food ration but Jere refused to comply with the direction on the basis that he could not get instructions from a supplier but from his boss, the Inspector General (IG) of Police.
He went further to say that then the IG instructed Jere to raise the requisition for 210, 000 ration packs but later the number rose to 350, 000 packs.
In his testimony, Jere said that he called the IG, Dr. Kainja and reported what Sattar had said and his response was that the government was planning to buy ration for the MPS and therefore that Jere should generate the requisition.
Following this, Jere generated a requisition for procurement of 210, 000 ration packs which he sent to the headquarters. Jere said the IPDC under the chairmanship of Merlyne Yolamu, agreed to give a contract to Zuneth Sattar for supply of 350, 000 ration food packs
“Jere went further to say that in May 2021 he missed calls from Sattar and later when they talked, Sattar told him to go to Lilongwe and meet with Ashok who was going to give him a gift. He agreed and he travelled to Lilongwe on the agreed date but upon arrival, Sattar was not picking his phone but later directed him to meet Ashok. Jere went to Ashok’s office and Ashok gave him an envelope containing K2, 000, 000. Jere said he texted a thank you message to Sattar.
“He said he was promised K5, 000, 000 but only received K2, 000, 000. He said the money he received was a gift but he does not know what the gift was for. He also said that he had refused to take instructions from Sattar,” reads the ruling
In view of the finding of a case to answer, Matemba will have to enter defence by either testifying, call witnesses, testify and call witnesses or remain silent.
