Bingu estate plundered
Employees working in entities belonging to the former president the late Bingu wa Mutharika resorted to stealing after they went three straight months without salaries and wages following the freezing of bank accounts.
The bank accounts, frozen by government over unpaid K5 billion (about $12 500 000) estate duty, have since been unfrozen after the Mutharika family and Estate Commissioner signed a consent order last Thursday.
But before the consent order was entered, lawyers representing the Mutharika family had filed an ex-parte summons at the High Court in Blantyre to vary order of the injunction and attachment order that necessitated the freezing of the bank accounts.
Hearing of the application by the Mutharika’s was, however, overtaken by events when the two parties signed the consent order in which, among other agreements, led to the unfreezing of the accounts and the Mutharika’s committing to payingthe estate duty.
The matter to hear the application by the Mutharika’s was set for hearing last Friday, but a day before the consent order was signed.
It is in the affidavit of the ex-parte summons filed by lawyers representing the Mutharika family, Frank Mbeta and Kalekeni Kaphale, that discloses how employees resorted to strikes and plundering of the late Mutharika estate.
Reads part of the affidavit: “As the situation remains on a standstill, the employees of the estate and/or entities related to the late Prof Bingu wa Mutharika, such as Bineth Trust, have now gone three months without being paid their salaries and wages to the extent that most of them have gone on strike while others have resorted to self-help by stealing properties which are part of the deceased estate…
“Thus the delay in conclusion of the amicable out of court settlement herein has and continues to cause untold suffering of innocent employees and the further deterioration of the properties involved herein.”
The lawyers cited nine local bank accounts they wanted unfrozen.
But the bank accounts were unlocked after the signing of the consent order last Thursday before hearing of this application, rendering it futile.
The Mutharika family, through the consent order entered, may now access the late Mutharika estate estimated at K61 billion in both property and cash.
