Misunderstandings rock Miss Heritage

Waves of misunderstandings have rocked local Miss Heritage Global between organisers and the reigning beauty queen.

The development has since resulted in the alleged dethronement of Miss Heritage Tionge Munthali and the firing of the country director Maynard Chizavare.

Miss Heritage Global is an international beauty pageant organisation which aims at promoting and celebrating heritage. In November 2016 they held a beauty contest in Lilongwe which Munthali won. But since then, trouble has sprung.

Chizavare’s firing has been confirmed in a letter from Miss Heritage Global—which is the rights holder for Miss Heritage Malawi—signed by its marketing director Primrose Tshuma.

Reads the letter: “In accordance with the termination clause of the franchise agreement this is to inform you of your dismissal from Miss Heritage Global, effective February 1 2017.

“This is in light of developments in Malawi’s franchise where several counts of misconduct are levelled against you, and your blatant refusal to accept reprimand and arbitration by the appointed office.

“You are hereby disallowed from holding any Miss Heritage Franchise henceforth. Miss Heritage Global’s non-disclosure agreement with you therefore becomes fully effective.”

Without confirming the firing, Chizavare told The Nation yesterday, when asked about the development, that he will only respond after meeting with his board members. He said he was on his way to South Africa.

In a related development, there appears to be confusion on the dethronement status of the reigning queen, Munthali.

Chizavare told The Nation that he fired Munthali for lack of commitment.

“She didn’t make more public appearances, events and charity work. Of course to an extent that was supposed to come from us, but she lacked the zeal to be in that office. She was supposed to be aggressive to us, come up with ideas which we could execute with her.

“She was not committed to the cause as evidenced by her approach to the crown where she was not punctual to meetings, failure to meet us when asked among others,” he said.

The 22-year-old Munthali, however, wrote on her Facebook claiming she had resigned.

“I stepped down, a lot has been happening. Firstly, I got crowned in November [2016] and never got my prize money. I was supposed to get K500 000 as my reign goes and then I did not have a contract,” she said.

Despite that, Miss Heritage Global vice-president Ronald Tisauke told The Nation that they distance themselves from the dethronement of Munthali.

“We do not accept the dethronement of the current queen and we still recognise her as the Malawi delegate. However, we are investigating the matter,” he said. n