The Public Appointments Committee of Parliament (PAC) has confirmed the appointment of Jean Phillipo-Priminta as director general of the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA).
Priminta’s confirmation follows her appearance before the Committee where it undertook a confirmation hearing process on Thursday at Parliament Building in Lilongwe.
In an interview, PAC Chairperson Joyce Chitsulo said the Committee anticipates that the newly confirmed FIA boss will work collaboratively with other like-minded institutions fighting graft in the country.
Confirmed Chitsulo: “I am glad to report that the honourable committee has confirmed the appointment of director general for the FIA.
As committee our expectation is that she is going to work in close collaboration with other like minded institutions like the Anti Corruption Bureau, we have the Office of the Director of Public Officers’ Declaration and other institutions.”
Chitsulo added that Priminta’s confirmation has come at a right time when Malawi is engulfed in serious corrupt practices.
“Our main focus as a committee is to prevent issues of corruption, because the FIA will be able to trace issues of corrupt practises or whatever,” Chitsulo said.
According to International Compliance Association (ICA), Phillipo-Priminta is an accomplished lawyer, seasoned prosecutor and an anti-money laundering and asset recovery practitioner.
Since her appointment earlier last week, she was a Chief State Advocate in the Ministry of Justice in Malawi where she was heading the Asset Forfeiture Unit in the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, coordinating asset recovery work across law enforcement agencies in Malawi.
Phillipo-Priminta obtained her Ph.D and LL.M Degrees in Transnational Criminal Justice from the University of the Western Cape, Republic of South Africa and Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany.
She specialised in the emerging fields of money laundering and asset recovery and she is a member of Malawi’s National Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Committee.
