Administrator General for law review on death benefits

The office of the Administrator General has suggested a review of the laws to address delays in disbursement of death benefits to dependents of deceased civil servants.

He said this would help in paying gratuity directly to beneficiaries without obtaining letters of administration from the High Court of Malawi.

The response follows a story The Nation published on Wednesday, where many stakeholders decried the winding bureaucratic path as files keep jumping from the Administrator General’s office to the Registrar General then to the High Court of Malawi under Probate Division before the Accountant General processes the payment.

The matter has been ignited by Hendrina Kamenya, a 23-year-old woman from Mwanza, who last week held a vigil at the Accountant General’s office in Lilongwe to force payment of her father’s death gratuity after three years of fruitless efforts.

Reacting to the developments yesterday, the office of the Administrator General, through Ministry of Justice spokesperson Frank Namangale admitted that pre-disbursement delays and the post-disbursement delays make beneficiaries spend a lot of money to access the funds.

He said: “Since the coming into force of the Pension Act, there have been no more delays with respect to pension money because the Administrator General pays pension money directly.

“But the delay comes in where the estate is composed of gratuity which requires obtaining letters of administration from the High Court.”

Namangale said the High Court is always overwhelmed with a backlog of cases that is why the Malawi Law Society has for many years lamented against the judges for delaying to give out judgements but to no avail.

“The problem is not with judges, rather there is too much work for them,” he said.

He further said the Administrator General maintains the view that the solution lies in removing the requirement of obtaining letters of administration on gratuity so that it can be paid directly just as pension money.

“In 2022 when the Pension Act was being taken to Parliament for amendment, the Administrator General submitted its proposal to the Ministry of Finance to incorporate gratuity so that it can be paid directly, but the proposal was never taken to Parliament,” he said.

Earlier, labour law expert Mauya Msuku said considering the volume of work at the Administrator General’s office, it would be better to decentralise such matters to magistrate courts where administrators can be appointed and easily follow the estates.