Malawi anti-corruption chief accused of using case files to pressure MPs

The acting head of Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) allegedly used confidential corruption case files involving senior opposition politicians as leverage to pressurise the parliamentary committee examining his conduct.

The allegation is contained in a formal, seven-page complaint filed on 22 April  by Steven Baba Malondera Kamsiyamo, the chair of parliament’s public accounts committee (PAC), addressed directly to the official he accuses.

The complaint describes a sustained effort by Gabriel Chembezi, the acting director-general of the ACB to secure his “clearance” from the PAC.

The committee had been investigating a pension fund’s acquisition of a hotel at a price that independent valuers said was several times above market value. Chembezi has not publicly responded to the allegations, which remain untested in court.

Read alongside separate questions raised about his alleged personal involvement in the same transaction his bureau was mandated to investigate, the complaint raises urgent questions about the integrity of Malawi’s anti-corruption framework.

The controversy originates with the Public Service Pension Trust Fund (PSPTF), Malawi’s third-largest pension fund, which administers retirement savings for teachers, nurses, police officers and other civil servants.

In November 2025, the fund purchased the Amaryllis Hotel in Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial capital, for about $74.4 million. The price immediately drew scrutiny. Property consultants Knight Frank had valued the hotel at about $27.2 million in 2023. A separate valuation commissioned through FDH Bank placed it at roughly $17.3 million.

Continental Asset Management, engaged by the fund itself in 2024, valued the property at about $21.2 million and warned that the investment would take 36 years to recover at the proposed price.

Malawi’s central bank subsequently ordered the fund to rescind the purchase, finding the board had “proceeded with the transaction before the direction was varied or removed,” in breach of prudential investment limits.

The deal’s origins are contested. Minutes from a January 2024 board meeting, in which trustees resolved not to purchase the hotel, have since gone missing. A newly constituted board revived and approved the deal in late 2025.

Civil society organisations condemned the transaction as “systemic plunder” of public servants’ retirement savings. Parliament opened a PAC inquiry on 10 March. 

According to Malondera’s complaint, the ACB chief made contact the same day. At 6:03 pm on 10 March, Chembezi sent Malondera a WhatsApp message saying he had obtained the MP’s number from a cousin. 

A phone call followed and the two men met that evening at Africa House in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital. Malondera wrote that Chembezi discussed the Amaryllis controversy and complained that members of the Malawi Law Society were “victimising” him and attempting to block his confirmation as ACB Director General.

He then asked to be “cleared” by the parliamentary committee so that his appointment could proceed. Malondera said he was “stunned” and offered no commitment.

The contacts allegedly continued. On 12 March, shortly before appearing before the PAC inquiry, Chembezi called again and asked Malondera to guarantee he would be “protected” during his testimony. Malondera refused, telling him the request was “inappropriate and impossible.”

Two days later, Chembezi allegedly arrived unannounced at Malondera’s home and accompanied him in his car as he prepared to travel to Salima, a town roughly 100 kilometres from the capital.

During the journey, Malondera wrote, Chembezi insisted that “people want to finish” him and asked what Malondera would require “to help you.” Malondera again refused, stating he served only as a neutral referee in the inquiry.

During the same exchange, Malondera challenged Chembezi over reports that he had gone to the pension fund’s offices to present a sale agreement while serving as acting ACB director general. Chembezi reportedly characterised the visit as part of a “handover” meeting.

Malondera subsequently reported these encounters to Malawi’s inspector-general of police. The complaint’s most serious allegations centre on a meeting on 30 March 2026, after the PAC had already adopted its report.

At 6:24 pm, Chembezi allegedly arrived at Malondera’s home driving a black Mercedes Benz carrying no registration plates and invited him to sit inside the vehicle. Inside the car, Malondera wrote, Chembezi said he had recently met the president and that the president was awaiting the PAC’s report. He again pressed for a “clearance.”

When Malondera declined, the tone of the meeting changed. Chembezi first produced a document claiming Malondera had misused about $636 000 during rehabilitation works at Mzuzu Airport while serving as deputy minister.

Malondera rejected the allegation, saying the project predated his tenure. Chembezi then allegedly produced several active corruption case files. One involved opposition politician Eisenhower Mkaka.

According to the complaint, Chembezi noted that the unregistered vehicle he had arrived in had previously been returned to the ACB by former presidential aide Prince Kapondamgaga, whom he alleged was connected to the same source as a vehicle linked to Mkaka.

He reportedly suggested that if Malondera helped “clear” him, he could “help” Mkaka in return. A second docket concerned Bester Awali, a sitting PAC member, relating to alleged campaign-related maize distribution.

Chembezi also allegedly named Simplex Chithyola, the leader of the opposition and former minister of finance, asserting he had a “strong case” involving alleged abuse of the Greenbelt Initiative, a government-run irrigation programme.

Chembezi added, according to the complaint, that he had served on the Greenbelt Board during a previous administration and could “assist to clear” individuals implicated there as a gesture of goodwill toward the ruling Malawi Congress Party, which had appointed him.

He also allegedly offered to refuel Malondera’s vehicle using an ACB fuel card. Malondera declined. Malondera stated in the complaint that the dockets were being wielded as leverage, “to procure me to abuse my role to clear you in the inquiry.”

Separate information placed before the parliamentary committee raised additional questions about Chembezi’s position in the underlying transaction.

The Malawi Law Society informed the PAC that it had declined to provide documents to the ACB after receiving information indicating that Chembezi was “representing the seller in the very transaction the Bureau was purportedly investigating.”

The society called on him to “immediately declare his interest in this matter and recuse himself from all further proceedings related to the impugned sale.”

The ACB did not respond, the society reported. State broadcaster MBC separately reported that “Chembezi through his law firm facilitated the purchase of Amaryllis Hotel by Yusuf Investment.” 

Yusuf Investment Limited is the company that sold the hotel to the pension fund. Chembezi’s original appointment as acting ACB director general had itself been disputed.

The society questioned its legality in November 2025, arguing the post required a “vigorous vetting process.” Legal experts cited in earlier reporting described the appointment as “irregular and illegal.”

In the concluding section of his complaint, Malondera addressed its recipient directly: “I find myself in the awkward position of reporting your patently corrupt conduct to you, the very person implicated. Your conflict of interest is obvious.”

He copied the document to the president, the justice ministry, the inspector general of police, the speaker of parliament, the attorney general, the director of public prosecutions and the Malawi Law Society. None had issued a public response at the time of writing.

The PSPTF administers retirement savings for thousands of Malawi’s public servants. Regulators have warned that the Amaryllis purchase created “serious liquidity mismatch and heightened concentration risk” for the fund.

Parliament’s public accounts committee withdrew its Amaryllis report on 7 April, extending the inquiry by one month. The pension fund’s controversial acquisition and its projected 36-year payback period, remains unresolved.

This article was made possible by a partnership with the Centre for Investigative Journalism Malawi