MRA SECURITY CONTRACTS: Debate not necessarily corruption but selective legal interpretation

The article “MRA security contracts stir debate” raises serious allegations and emotive concerns, but in doing so it risks collapsing legal nuance, procurement procedure, and constitutional safeguards into a narrative that appears more accusatory than analytical.

While public scrutiny of state procurement is both necessary and welcome, it is equally important that such scrutiny is grounded in law, fact, and fairness rather than conjecture, inference, and public suspicion.

At the centre of the debate is the Malawi Revenue Authority’s publication of an intention to award security contracts amounting to K5.4 billion. Crucially, an intention to award is not an award itself.

Under the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets (PPDA) Act, this stage exists precisely to promote transparency, invite objections, and allow redress before any binding contractual obligations are entered into.

To portray this statutory step as evidence of wrongdoing is to misrepresent both its purpose and legal effect.

The article repeatedly implies impropriety by conflating an ongoing legal case involving Minister Alfred Gangata with the procurement process itself. Yet, in law, an accused person remains innocent until proven guilty.

There is no provision in the PPDA Act that imposes an automatic and blanket exclusion on a bidder merely because they are subject to legal proceedings, especially where there has been no conviction, no court-imposed restriction, and no judicial finding of guilt.

Any interpretation to the contrary dangerously undermines the rule of law and replaces it with presumption-based punishment.

Section 75 of the PPDA Act, cited by commentators in the article, must be read carefully and holistically. The law does not criminalise participation in public procurement by individuals or firms facing allegations; rather, it empowers procuring entities to assess risk, compliance, and eligibility based on verifiable criteria.

If Parliament intended to bar all bidders with pending cases, it would have said so explicitly. Instead, the law balances integrity with fairness, recognising that allegations alone cannot be the basis for exclusion in a constitutional democracy.

Equally troubling is the insinuation that MRA’s Commissioner General, Felix Tambulasi, is conflicted merely because he once represented Gangata in private practice. Malawi’s legal profession, like others across common-law jurisdictions, operates on the understanding that lawyers act for clients without assuming their guilt or innocence.

To suggest that prior professional representation automatically translates into institutional bias is to set an unworkable standard that would disqualify countless public officials from service and weaponise career history against public administration.

The Constitution’s Section 88(5), cited in the article, is also stretched beyond its intended scope. That provision is meant to prevent Cabinet ministers from abusing office for personal gain, not to criminalise the commercial existence of businesses owned by politicians, nor to bar them indefinitely from public procurement without proof of interference, influence, or abuse of authority.

No evidence is presented that Gangata used his ministerial office to influence the tender, the evaluation process, or the procurement committee at MRA.

Furthermore, the procurement process in question was conducted through open national competitive bidding, advertised publicly, and subjected to evaluation procedures prescribed by law. These facts are acknowledged in the article but curiously downplayed.

Transparency is not demonstrated by secrecy, but by openness—and MRA did exactly what the law demands by publishing the intention to award and inviting public feedback within the statutory 21-day period.

The criticism over the size of the contracts, while emotionally appealing, also lacks policy context. Security services for a national revenue authority covering multiple regional clusters, sensitive installations, and round-the-clock operations inevitably attract significant costs.

To describe the figures as “indefensible” without a comparative market analysis, benchmarking, or assessment of operational scope is to substitute outrage for evidence. Fiscal responsibility must be argued with data, not indignation.

More concerning is the broader implication of the article: that public institutions should avoid lawful decisions simply to avoid controversy. This sets a dangerous precedent.

If every procurement decision involving politically exposed persons is condemned irrespective of legality, the state risks descending into governance by perception rather than governance by law. Institutions would become paralysed, afraid to act not because they are wrong, but because they might be misunderstood.

Public accountability does not mean public lynching. Investigative journalism should illuminate facts, test legality, and hold power to account—not pre-empt judicial outcomes or imply guilt through association.

Where legitimate questions exist, they should be pursued through lawful objections, PPDA review mechanisms, and the courts, not through narratives that erode trust in institutions without definitive proof.

In the final analysis, the real danger exposed by this debate is not necessarily corruption, but the creeping normalisation of trial by media, selective legal interpretation, and the erosion of due process.

Malawi’s democracy is best served not by suspicion-driven governance, but by adherence to constitutional principles, respect for procurement law, and the presumption of innocence. Anything less risks replacing the rule of law with the rule of outrage.