Kunje in court for attempting to overtake Chakwera’s motorcade

The Senior Resident Magistrate Court in Zomba is expected to continue hearing a case where Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) Commissioner Linda Kunje and driver Jones Tewesa are answering a case of criminal reckless and negligence.

The two are alleged to have committed the offence on December 10, 2020, along the M3 road after they obstructed President Lazarus Chakwera’s convoy which was on its way from Blantyre to Zomba where the President was set to preside over a graduation ceremony at Chancellor College.

State Prosecutor, Levison Mangani, has told the court that they are ready to parade four witnesses in the case.

The State has since brought to three police escort vehicles on the presidential convoy to demonstrate how Kunje blocked Chakwera’s motorcade last year.

Kunje’s vehicle is said to have been ordered to stop for three times but but the driver defied traffic officers’ orders and continued with the journey against road traffic laws.

Chapter 123 of the Road Traffic Act stipulates that motorists have to stop for the President’s convoy to pass. Specifically, it stipulates that, when a vehicle in which the President is travelling is in motion on any road and is accompanied by an escort, the driver of every other vehicle on that road shall, as soon as the leading vehicle of the escort is within such a distance as to be easily recognisable, draw his vehicle as is reasonably practicable to the side of the carriageway and shall stop such vehicle until the vehicle in which the President is travelling and its escort have passed.

Section 2 of the Chapter states that no person driving a vehicle shall overtake or attempt to overtake any vehicle in which the President is travelling with an escort or any vehicle in such escort, adding that, for the purposes of the said chapter, the two sides of a dual carriageway shall together be deemed to constitute one road.