PAC meets Malawi Police over performance audit 

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Botomani

The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament has expressed concerns over the delayed prosecution of cases by the Malawi Police Service.

On Thursday, the committee met with officials from the Malawi Police Service to get responses from the delayed prosecution of cases following the auditor general’s performance audit report.

Giving a picture of what transpired during the in-camera meeting, the Chairperson for the committee, Mark Botomani, said the committee was interested in critical issues to do with the backlog of cases, to which MPS responded on the current measures put in place to address the concerns.

The MPS team was led by Inspector General of Police Merlin Yolamu.

According to Botomani, some of the reasons police gave for the delay in prosecution of most cases were 

Botomani told journalists that the delay in meeting MPS and handling the audit queries, which date back to 2010, was contributed by parliament and the police itself.

“We are now happy that there is progress on this performance audit report as the police have presented to us the measures being implemented to address the challenges”, Botomani said.

Among other measures, police undertaking includes beefing up the prosecution team by, among others, recruitment of 15 qualified lawyers.

Police also stated that some of the delays are contributed by the courts to set dates for hearings.

Meanwhile, the committee has requested MPS to consider taking maintenance exercises of the police staff houses, saying that some of them are in a dilapidated state.