Governance expert Undule Mwakasungula has appealed to the state to drop the charges against Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director General Martha Chizuma over her leaked audio conversation. 

Through a media statement, Mwakasungula says charging and prosecuting Chizuma undermines the country’s collective efforts in the fight against grand scale theft of public funds through corruption, favoritism and organized crime syndicate the country is experiencing.

ACB Director General Martha Chizuma is facing charges in relation to a leaked audio, following President Lazarus Chakwera’s address on January 18, where he stood by his initial decision not to fire Chizuma and allowed those who feel offended by Chizuma’s act to go ahead and seek court’s intervention on the matter.

This according to Mwakasungula showed Chakwera’s two sides, that while he seemed committed to support Chizuma in the fight against corruption he on the other hand directly sacrificed and handed over Chizuma to the public through the Courts for criminal offences on the leaked audio.

Read part of the statement: “I believe that charging and prosecuting the ACB Director will neither be in the interests of justice nor public. She did not commit any crime and had no intention to harm, intimidate or injure anyone.”

“The leaked audio was a set-up of her enemies who were masquerading as friends and that it is these people who leaked the audio that should be charged for undermining the Chizuma and the fight against corruption,” read the statement.

In addition, Mwakasungula has also blamed the Commission of Inquiry that was established to investigate issues surrounding the Chizuma’s for failing to investigate who ordered the arrests and who leaked the audio by alleging that the Commission acted in malice by ignoring critical facts about those who leaked the audio and legitimized and perpetuated criminal prosecution of Chizuma.

At that he has appealed that the charges against Chizuma be dropped for the interest of fighting corruption in the country.

Meanwhile retired judge, Justice Dunstain Mwaungulu SC, has also called on the Director of Public Prosecution to discontinue proceedings against the Director General of the Anti-corruption together under section 99 (2) (c) of the Constitution and section 77 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Code.

Through a Facebook post Justice Mwaungulu said it is not in the interest of justice to prosecute the ACB Director.