Top UTM officials have been named in a serious funding scandal towards the spate of violent protests aimed at forcing President Dr Lazarus Chakwera to resign.

This follows Vice President Saulos Chilima's call to his boss, President Chakwera to remove presidential immunity from prosecution of crimes.

The violent protesters, who have been damaging property and looting, say President Chakwera should resign because of his failure to remove presidential immunity to allow him to be prosecuted, although President Chakwera is not facing corruption or any criminal charges.

Chilima has been named in two crucial reports; that of the National Crime Agency (NCA) of the UK and the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) as suspected to have benefitted from generous monetary and material gifts from Zunneth Sattar, the corruption kingpin.

A list which we have seen show that during one of the violent demos recently, Chilima donated K2 million.

Others include Noel Masangwi who contributed K400,000, Richard Makonde K700,000, Iqbar Omar K500,000, Fatima Nkata K250,000, Hendrix Laher K250,000, Felix Njawala K300,000, Chrissie Kalamula K100,000, Susan Dossi K40,000, among others.

The amount donated is over K9 million and was delivered to the team leading the demos by Andrew Kamlopa, Chris Chaka and Aaron Chiweza.

Some political commentators say Chilima is funding the protests to divert people's attention from his corruption scandals which may cut short his blossoming political career.

ACB is also probing the Vice President how he bought hundreds of party vehicles recently.

ACB interrogators failed to interview him on the allegations that he might have received huge sums of money and other gifts from Sattar after UTM cadres were unleashed to surround his residence in Lilongwe to prevent the ACB interrogators from meeting Chilima.