High Court Judge Allan Hans Muhome has thrown out a case in which Mulli Brothers Limited (MBL) sued a consulting firm Deloitte for defamation in a forensic audit report claim that the company benefited from dubious payments from Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM).
Released in May 2021, the audit report from January 1 2019 and June 30 2020 details how central bank officials allegedly bended own rules to facilitate payments, including some which auditors deemed fabricated.
MBL dragged the firm to court after the audit report, which was leaked showed that the company and Jean Mathanga (the wife to RBM deputy governor) were benefitting from hefty loans from RBM for their businesses and that the two were paid money four times for the Fertiliser Subsidy Programme and payments were made before the contracts were awarded to other suppliers.
Mulli argued that this conclusion by Deloitte was written negligently and with malice as the said RBM did not at any time dubiously finance the claimant
However, in his ruling dated July 31 2024, judge Muhome said the actions by any third party in publishing contents of the audit report does not tantamount to defamation.
“The Defendants state that the Forensic Report was intended for RBM’s use only. The Defendants marked it “Private and Confidential” and addressed and submitted it to RBM as per the terms of the Contract. In addition, the Defendants made a disclaimer in regard to the distribution of the Report to third parties under Section 2.3.5 of the Forensic Audit Report.
“It would certainly be unjust to hold that the Forensic Audit Report which was published to members of the public through a Court Order can be said to have been published by the Defendants. If that is not enough, this Court is of the opinion that the Defendants submission that their findings in relation to the Claimant were fair and justified is compelling.
“The Forensic Audit which the Defendants conducted at RBM revealed that the manner in which some RBM employees administered the FISP showed that they were reckless, leading to a financial loss of around K2.9 billion,reads part of the ruling
