Chikhosi surrenders 1 of 3 govt vehicles
Ministry of Justice says former secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) Zanga-Zanga Chikhosi has surrendered one of the three contentious official vehicles he took home when he left office in May 2022.
The ministry’s spokesperson Pirirani Masanjala said this in a written response to our questionnaire yesterday.
The three vehicles are a Toyota Landcruiser VX originally purchased for the Vice-President alongside a Mercedes Benz and Toyota VX which were his official vehicles before his contract was terminated.
Masanjala said Chikhosi returned one vehicle and had undertaken to return a second one.
He referred The Nation to the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) for details on whether the second vehicle had been returned.
Said Masanjala: “The case is still in court. However, the former SPC returned one car and undertook to return the second one.
“We urge you to enquire from OPC as to the finer details in so far the up to date information is concerned.”
Our efforts to get a comment from the OPC proved futile as SPC Colleen Zamba and her deputy Janet Banda did not pick up our calls yesterday.
The Toyota Landcruiser V8R was originally purchased for use by Vice-President Saulos Chilima and cost taxpayers over K141 million.
In July 2022, the High Court of Malawi granted an injunction against the OPC withdrawing the vehicles from Chikhosi, arguing that they were awaiting clarity on the fired SPC’s contract.
In a previous interview, Chikhosi said his conditions of service entitled him to purchase one of the vehicles at 10 percent of the original price duty-free and that since his contract was yet to expire, he intended to exercise this option with regard to any of the vehicles that were officially allocated to him for his use.
He obtained an injunction against the OPC withdrawing two official vehicles from him through his lawyer Wapona Kita in July when the police raided his house in a bid to force him to surrender the vehicles.
In a July 2022 statement Kita said it was clear that he (Chikhosi) was not fired and that his contract was not terminated, but is still in the public service to be redeployed elsewhere by the President.
