Court nods to transfer of bus depots
The High Court of Malawi Commercial Division in Blantyre has dismissed an application by National Bus Company Limited to sustain an ex-parte injunction stopping a liquidator from disposing of public bus depots nationwide.
The action by the bus company, a subsidiary of Mulli Brothers Limited (MBL) Holdings owned by businessperson Leston Mulli, prevented the liquidator of the State-owned Shire Bus Lines, Hastings Bofomo Nyirenda, from putting on sale the bus depots spread across the nation.
In his ruling delivered on Wednesday, presiding Judge Jabbar Alide dismissed the application by National Bus Company with costs.
Effectively, the judgement means that the liquidator, who was represented by senior counsel Modecai Msisha, can now proceed to sell the bus depots.
In an interview yesterday, Attorney General Thabo Chakaka-Nyirenda, who represented the State in the case, said the liquidator was now free to proceed to sign land transfer instruments in favour of local councils, namely M’mbelwa District Council, Kasungu Municipal Council, Mzuzu City Council, Lilongwe City Council and Blantyre City Council.
Lawyer Lusungu Gondwe, who represented the bus company, said yesterday that he had no fresh instructions yet from his client on the next move.
The ruling followed another judgement delivered on August 3 2022 by the High Court in Lilongwe which granted the Attorney General a preservation order that effectively stopped the bus company from dealing in any way with the bus depots it claimed it owned.
The August 3 High Court order made in Lilongwe was also preceded by another the High Court in Blantyre, which discharged permission for judicial review which was granted to National Bus Company.
Gondwe had earlier described the High Court’s decision in Lilongwe to grant the preservation order as inconsequential because they had an injunction in the Commercial Court, which the court has finally vacated.
The bus company claimed that when the government sold Shire Bus Lines, it also gave the company the bus depots as part of the deal, but the Attorney General argued that there was no proof of land transfer and that the depots remained government property.
The bus firm had claimed there was a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the sale agreement, a claim the defendants dismissed and expressed ignorance of.
But in his ruling, Alide said in respect of the application, it was clear from the sworn statement in support of the application, as well as the statement of case filed by the claimant, that the present action was solely based on the MoU signed by government and others involved in the matter.
“In short, the MoU was never fully implemented… After considering the foregoing, I find that there is no serious question to be tried in this matter. In other words, it is my finding that the claimant has not disclosed a good and arguable claim to the right that he seeks to protect in this matter,” he said.
The court went on to dismiss the application, awarding the defendants, namely the liquidator and the AG costs.
