Mabvuto Banda is an investigative journalist from

Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast ...

.www.zodiakmalawi.com
Banda is a well respected journalist in Malawi and on the continent. His writings have been subject of controversy due to a strong stance against corruption and other political exposés. He has been arrested five times due to his work.

Personal

He was born in

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...

Career

He has been a correspondent for many news agencies, including

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

Inter Press Service Inter Press Service (IPS) is a global news agency headquartered in Rome, Italy. Its main focus is news and analysis about social, political, civil, and economic subjects as it relates to the Global South, civil society and globalization. Hist ...

. He is a regular correspondent for ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

''. Some of his major stories was an exposé on a plot by the UDF under President

Bakili Muluzi Elson Bakili Muluzi (born March 17, 1943 in Machinga, Nyasaland) is a Malawian politician who was the first freely elected president of Malawi from 1994 to 2004. He was also chairman of the United Democratic Front (UDF) until 2009. He succeeded ...

to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for a third term in office. This galvanized civil society to act against this. Banda's work on anti-corruption also led to the arrest of a petroleum firm's CEO on charges of corruption involving US$11 million. He was embezzling millions of dollars into his offshore accounts. Mabvuto is also credited for exposing a corrupt minister of education who abused state funds to finance his wedding. The minister became the first cabinet member to be fired and convicted in democratic Malawi. He also was behind the expulsion of the British high commissioner to Malawi in 2011 when he wrote about a British cable that detailed how Mutharika was being viewed by Western diplomats. The expulsion of the British envoy increasingly pushed Malawi into diplomatic isolation.

Mutharika administration journalism arrests

In 2005, Banda reported that then President

Bingu wa Mutharika Bingu wa Mutharika (; born Brightson Webster Ryson Thom; 24 February 1934 – 5 April 2012) was a Malawian politician and economist who was President of Malawi from May 2004 until his death in April 2012. He was also President of the Democ ...

had moved out of the presidential palace due to the fear of haunting in the presidential palace. The president's religious affairs adviser, Malani Mtonga, had reported this but later denied it. Mtonga had reported that the President was hearing "strange noises" and "felt a strange presence hanging around him" at night. Another independent renowned journalist, Raphael Tenthani, had reported the same story. Both Mr. Tenthani and Mabvuto Banda were at their homes in

Blantyre Blantyre () is Malawi's centre of finance and commerce, and its second largest city, with an enumerated 800,264 inhabitants . It is sometimes referred to as the commercial and industrial capital of Malawi as opposed to the political capital, L ...

and detained at police headquarters in

Lilongwe Lilongwe (, , ) is the capital and most populated city of the African country of Malawi. It has a population of 989,318 as of the 2018 Census, up from a population of 674,448 in 2008. In 2020 that figure was 1,122,000. The city is located in th ...

. Mabvuto was going to be charged with "publishing false information that is likely to cause breach of peace". In March 2012 Banda also made headlines in the Malawi press for challenging the Minister of Information,

Patricia Kaliati Patricia Annie Kaliati is a Malawian politician and former educator who has held various ministerial positions in the Cabinet of Malawi. Early life and education Kaliati was born in 1967 in the village Nkando, Mulanje, Southern Region, Malawi ...

, about the role of government.

Awards

John Manyarara (Southern Africa) Investigative Journalism Award, 2006 Reuters News Agency Journalist of the Year, 2006 Runner-up World Water competition, 2003 (Japan) Investigative Journalist of the Year, 2000, Journalist of the year, 2001, Investigative Journalist of the year, 2002, journalist of the year, 2004, 05 Environmental journalist of the year, 2013 African Story challenge finalist, 2013

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banda, Mabvuto Malawian journalists Malawian columnists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)