FELIX MPONDA, Blantyre | Wednesday
A COURT in Malawi has acquitted former cabinet minister Brown Mpinganjira on what he says were trumped-up charges of corruption relating to a $2m contract scheme.
After the acquittal, the courtroom burst into chants from jubilant suporters of the former education minister, who was sacked last year by President Bakili Muluzi over the allegations.
“This was a witch-hunt to destroy my character. They will not destroy my spirit,” Mpinganjira told reporters after the verdict was released. “I always maintained my arrest was on trumped-up charges.”
Mpinganjira was sacked in November, along with two other ministers, for allegedly authorising payments to “ghost contractors” to build schools when he was education minister two years ago.
Last month the ex-minister was arrested and accused of receiving $2 000 and trying to influence the awarding of one of the larger contracts. The projects were never completed and the funds were allegedly diverted towards campaigning for last year’s parliamentary and presidential polls.
He would have faced between five and 12 years imprisonment if he had been convicted.
The magistrate said evidence tendered in court by 13 state witnesses did not establish Mpinganjiras influence in awarding the contracts.
Mpinganjira, a close aide to Muluzi and a political heavyweight for six years in the United Democratic Front (UDF), was expelled from the party a week ago.
The expulsion came after he formed a pressure group against moves by party loyalists to amend the constitution to allow Muluzi to seek a third term in 2004.
Mpinganjira was previously considered by many as a pillar of the UDF. He helped set up the party and held several cabinet portfolios, including that of information and foreign affairs, since 1994.
But he has recently become a political thorn in the flesh of the governing party. The just-ended trial has seen him fast rising to an opposition political hero. – AFP