Immigration officer arrested over bribes
The Department of Immigration has arrested one of its employees for allegedly receiving bribes, barely days after it announced it will deal with intermediaries and employees who engage in corrupt practices to help clients access the department’s services.
According to deputy public relations officer for the department, Chilungamo Kapulula, the arrested employee is Leonard Ngala, 40, from Mbeta Village, Traditional Authority Malemia in Nsanje.
Kapulula said Ngala has been working with the department since February 1 2012 as a messenger.
“I can confirm that Ngala is in police custody at Blantyre Police. We arrested him after one of our customers had complained that the passport of her child was taking long to be released,” said Kapulula.
He said Ngala received a bribe of K20 000 ($52) on July 19 2014 to help facilitate the processing of two passports belonging to Yamikani Jandala Banda and Dumisani Thengo Mwale.
“Ngala also demanded another K20 000 which he said was for officers to process the passports and was also given K7 000 to be used as transport by the person to hand over the passports to the customers,” said Kapulula.
He said Mwale’s mother (Linda Mitole) suspected foul play after observing that the passport was not coming forth and Ngala was avoiding her.
“She, therefore, decided to report to our office. After investigations, we established that Ngala received the bribe and we reported the issue to police,” said Kapulula.
The development comes after chief immigration officer Hudson Mankhwala addressed a media briefing last week where he condemned the practice of demanding bribes from clients to process their passports.
