Prior to his governorship of the country's central bank, Kabambe worked in the Malawi Government Economic Service for a period of 19 years from 1998.
[3] Kabambe publicly announced his decision to join active politics on 31 December 2020 when he was unveiled as a member of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (Malawi).
Kabambe was rocked in a salary controversy when it emerged that as governor of Malawi's central bank, his monthly perk was billed at K24 million (about US$30,000).
The organisation, Centre for Democracy and Economic Development (CDEDI), claimed in a report that it released to the media that the audit was illegal and that the leakage smacked of a conspiracy to stop Kabambe from becoming DPP's torchbearer in order to oust the incumbent president, Lazarus Chakwera in the 2025 Malawi presidential elections.
In December 2021, Dalitso Kabambe was accused of manipulating accounts to obtain a loan from the International Monetary Fund while he was director of the central bank of Malawi.