The Malawi Police Service says it has reduced overall crime rate by 5.61 percent this year. Assistant Commissioner of Police Prescott Mwayiulipo said in Mzuzu on Monday during Christmas and New Year celebrations that the police remained committed to reducing crimes despite facing various challenges. He said: “The police have managed to reduce crimes by 5.61 percent, which is fascinating as far as achieving our constitutional and statutory mandate is concerned.
“Much as there were challenges, the police managed to [deal with] a good number of criminal cases that Malawians are encountering. Most of those cases included sexual offences, burglary, housebreaking and homicides.” On challenges, Mwayiulipo, who represented the Inspector General of Police Richard Luhanga, conceded the troubling crimes committed by or against motorcycle taxi operators commonly known as kabaza. He said: “It is true that several road accidents in 2025 involved kabaza operators.
But some of them experienced various grievous assaults from passengers. “However, the police will not relent on this issue, but work with other responsible agencies like Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services and Road Safety Alert Foundation to bring sanity to this industry.” This year, Police recorded 41181 cases 4 3629 last year, translating to a 5.61 percent reduction. The festive season carols were graced by Northern Region Deputy Police Commissioner Glinton Mitayi who addressed at least 700 senior police officers gathered at the event.
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Mitayi said the Northern Region managed to reduce crimes with various margins this year. “I observed that our recorded crime decreased by 3.7 percent; that is from 4 874 cases recorded last year, 2024, to 4 690 cases for this year,” he said. Mitayi said road accidents declined from 359 to 325, representing a 9.4 percent decrease while breaking cases dropped by 5.9 percent from 977 to 919 cases this year.
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