Bengol.Net Limited, a local telecommunications firm, has taken conglomerate Press Corporation plc to task over its shareholding stance in Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL) whose matter is still in court.
This follows a cautionary statement which PCL issued on February 20 2025, advising its shareholders that it is engaged in exclusive negotiations for the potential sale of its entire shareholding interest in MTL, being 52.7 percent of the total issued share capital of MTL.
Ironically, in 2021, Bengol.Net Limited took PCL to court for alleged breach of an agreement to offer the firm a stake in MTL.
Court documents filed in the High Court Commercial Division Blantyre Registry by lawyer Ambokire Salimu then showed that Bengol.Net on February 16 2021 entered into an exclusivity agreement under which it was placed under an obligation to prepare and present a binding offer to acquire a stake in MTL.
In a public notice Business News has seen, Bengol.Net Limited lawyers Salimu and Associates said the total shareholding of PCL in MTL constitutes the subject matter of a dispute between Bengol. Net Limited and all the shareholders in MTL in Commercial Case Number 2.35 of 2021.
Reads the notice in part: “The general public is further notified that at a prehearing conference before the Honourable Justice Alide in the Commercial Division of the High Court of Malawi on the 7th day of March 2024, it was ordered that Old Mutual, Nico Holdings, the Attorney General and Investment Alliance, shareholders in MTL at 16.1 percent, 9.0 percent, 20 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively be formerly added to the proceedings [the initial defendant having been PCL and MTL].”
The notice further said it was further ordered that the Attorney General be added as a defendant after being given the mandatory three months statutory period of the claimant’s intention to sue the Malawi Government and that, thereafter, the matter should be exempted from further mediation and should proceed to trial.
The firm’s managing director Mohammed Zafar Abdullah revealed this in Blantyre after the Parliamentary Committee on Media, Information, and Communications visited their offices to appreciate their contribution to the Malawi Digital Project, funded by the World Bank.
However, on Friday, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Simplex Chithyola Banda indicated in the 2025/26 National Budget that the government is in the process of merging ICT-based institutions which provide similar services, including MTL which it will acquire.
Bengol.net Limited’s financial investments include fibre optic cable installation worth $1.5 million (about K876 million), a prior investment of $12 million (about K21 billion), an offer to acquire MTL for K 8.5 billion, and plans to rehabilitate MTL with a budget of $51 million (about K89 billion).
