Last week, President Lazarus Chakwera’s Tonse government doubled down on its attempts to intimidate and defame embattled technology company Techno Brain, in an increasingly desperate effort to extricate itself from an e-passport contract the previous administration signed in 2019.
On Tuesday, Attorney General (AG) Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda managed to overturn a petition by Techno Brain employee Prakash Naidu to free himself from unsanctioned house arrest by officers from the Department for Immigration and Citizenship Services (DICS), which has been in effect for over a month.
Naidu’s representatives had filed an application with a high court judge to be brought before a court and have his case heard.
However,Nyirenda deployed an obscure piece of legal procedure to argue that since Naidu’s case had previously been submitted to another judge, his application should be dismissed.
The AG declined to comment on the legality of Mr Naidu’s detention, which has been described by his employers Techno Brain as an attempt to use him as “human bait” in a bid to force the company to hand over its data centre and drop its legal challenge over the contract dispute.
The disagreement started in December, when the government announced that it would be cancelling its contract for Techno Brain to upgrade the country’s passport issuance system and provide 800,000 e-passports.
At the time, AG Nyirenda claimed that the company had won its contract on a fraudulent basis – a statement he is yet to produce evidence for and which Techno Brain vehemently denies.
Since then, Techno Brain has come under serious pressure from the government to terminate the contract.
The company posits that this is an attempt by the government to avoid paying for services already delivered, pointing out that DICS has freely admitted to missing payment obligations in the past.
In a letter dated 24th November 2021, the government acknowledged that it owed the tech firm $23 million in outstanding payments.
Last week’s decision marks the second time the government has rejected Naidu’s application for release after denying a writ of Habeas Corpus in January.
On no occasion has the government produced a warrant justifying Naidu’s detention, which it claims is to prevent him leaving without handing over the passwords and keys to a data centre belonging to Techno Brain.
His confinement is therefore tantamount to human collateral over a contract dispute, as well as a flagrant violation of his human rights.
Furthermore, the dispute presents a troubling picture for any potential investors, who see the new regime in Malawi as unabashedly hostile towards foreign companies and their employees.
Techno Brain was contracted under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) agreement to set up an entirely new passport infrastructure in Malawi, as well as develop the capacity to maintain and operate that system over time. In addition, the company trained over 125 DICS officials in how to operate the new passport issuance database.
Now the government is struggling to find a replacement company to fulfil the 800,000 passports promised by Techno Brain.
Earlier this month, DICS said it would only be able to provide emergency passports until further notice, leaving hundreds of Malawians without the necessary documentation to travel to work, visit relatives or receive medical treatment.
To make matters worse, security expert Sherif Kaisi has warned that the passport scarcity will likely result in corruption as desperate citizens bribe officials for expedited documents.
The best thing for the government to do now would be to de-escalate the situation by releasing Mr Naidu and allowing him to return home.
This would go some way to restoring faith in Malawi’s justice system, as well as mitigating concerns from investors that the government is hostile to foreign businesses.
More importantly, however, it would restore liberty to an innocent man who is being wrongfully imprisoned.
