Malawi's Director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Gustav Kaliwo, has become the latest victim of President Bingu wa Mutharika's intolerance for political liabilities and embarrassments. Hot on the heels of the arrest of former President Bakili Muluzi by Gustav Kaliwo, an arrested which lasted less than four hours, the ACB Director himself has temporarily lost his job pending further findings.

Mr. Kaliwo is reported to have ignored a presidential directive to delay the arrest of Muluzi until the entire budget had cleared the parliamentary hurdle. The arrest of Muluzi this morning resulted in all budget votes going against government in Parliament as opposition MPs, who outnumber government MPs in the House, voted en bloc to reject all but one votes proferred.

But a more salacious reason is credited with speeding up the suspension of the ACB Director who was going to be suspended, anyway, for this more salacious reason. For the past month or so the president has been receiving intelligence reports indicating the existence of a torrid amorous relationship between the married Director of the ACB [his wife is a police officer] and the New Clerk of Parliament [married] Mrs. Mathilda Katopola [whose husband is lawyer Isaac Katopola]. President Mutharika was known to await an opportune moment at which to dispatch the ACB Director for the affair which he did not approve as he thought it reflected badly on his administration and the image of discipline the admin wishes to project.

A decision to suspend Kaliwo was made by Mutharika when he learned that at the State Funeral of late hero Chakufwa Chihana the two, Mrs. Katopola and Mr. Kaliwo, were virtually inseparable and reputedly made some very public gestures of mutual affection of the amorous variety. They even, reports allege, spent the night ensemble. News of these happenings is reported to have angered the president visibly and he is reported to have told his closest aides that he intended to suspend Kaliwo as a result. Today's fiasco of arresting Muluzi and the resulting embroglio in Parlaiment is reported to have been the last straw that broke the president's back on the matter and triggered Kaliwo's suspension.