By The Forum

Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Simplex Chithyola Banda, was arrested on Sunday over allegations of money laundering and abuse of office.

Chithyola, who previously served as finance minister under the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) administration, handed himself over to authorities after police obtained a warrant for his arrest.

“He has been charged with money laundering and abuse of office,” his lawyer, George Javison Kadzipatike, said, adding that his client presented himself to Area 6 Fiscal Police in Lilongwe following the issuance of a warrant by the Mkukula Magistrate Court.

According to the Platform for Investigative Journalism (PIJ), Chithyola’s arrest is linked to a wide-ranging corruption investigation at the state-run Greenbelt Authority (GBA), a developing scandal that investigators say could rival — or even surpass — the infamous Cashgate case.

An audit found that the Cashgate scandal, which was exposed in 2013, may have begun as early as 2009, with an estimated $356 million misappropriated between 2009 and 2014, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime .

The scheme involved siphoning public funds through transfers from government accounts to private companies that failed to deliver the goods or services they were paid for.

On Chithyola’s arrest, sources within the Malawi Police Service told PIJ that the arrest warrant had been issued on Friday, adding that “he knew the pressure was mounting.”

The Greenbelt Authority, a government institution mandated to spearhead irrigation-led agricultural transformation, is now at the center of the probe. Investigators allege that at least K39 billion was siphoned off through fraudulent invoices, inflated contracts, and collusion between senior officials and private contractors within a four-month period from March to July 2025.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) further alleges that some of the funds were used to finance political campaigns ahead of Malawi’s September 2025 general elections, as well as to make illicit payments to GBA employees.

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