The New Year 2025 has started on a rough note for Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) as the courts have frozen its bank accounts and sanctioned the sheriff to seize its assets.
The bone of contention is a K25 billion compensation award to 3 282 employees that the State produce trader retrenched in January 2023.
Not i ng no movement i n implementing the Industrial Relations Court (IRC) order, the former workers, through one of their lawyers Chimwemwe Kalua, moved to get orders to enforce payment.
He said: “In the enforcement of the judgement, we have taken two actions. The other one is a warrant of execution, a seizure and sale order.
“That one is directed to the sheriff for it to get goods and satisfy the judgement. That one has been taken and it has gone to the sheriff.”
On the freezing of bank accounts, Kalua said they have obtained an order asking the banks to set aside funds to satisfy the judgement.
A source at Admarc confided in The Nation that the sheriffs on Tuesday impounded two vehicles at the parastatal’s headquarters in Blantyre.
“Apart from that [the vehicles], they have also taken the fixed assets register which details all the property which Admarc owns. It could be that they are set to continue impounding the assets,” said the source.
However, when asked about the impounding of vehicles, Kalua said he was yet to get an update from the sheriff.
“Just like with the sheriff, we will only know if money has been set aside if we get an affidavit or a signed statement indicating that the order has been acted upon and that some funds have been attached,” he said.
In a brief response yesterday, High Court of Ma lawi and Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal acting registrar Innocent Nebi confirmed the sheriff order and the subsequent impounding of the two vehicles.
“I confirm. Thank you,” said the registrar, who also speaks for the Sheriff of Malawi.
In a c i rcul a r dated January 30 2023, Admarc announced the retrenchment of all staff with effect from February 1 2023 as part of its restructuring process.
However, led by Alex Ma l ikebu, the af f ected employees contested the decision in the IRC and challenged their dismissal as unjust.
The court granted the retrenched staff their wish in a November 15 2024 ruling. It ordered Admarc to pay the former employees K25 billion comprising K7 billion compensation for unfair dismissal and K18 billion for unfair labour practices.
But Admarc asked the court to put aside execution of the earlier order pending appeal of the judgement and the IRC ordered Admarc to immediately pay K12.5 billion as part payment of the initial compensation award.
In its earlier court application , Admarc indicated that it was still in financial distress, as such, it would be dif f icult to immediately pay the said compensation within the 10 days which the court earlier ordered.
In Sep tember 2 0 2 2 , Ministry of Agr iculture closed Admarc and sent its ent i re staff on paid leave to pave the way for restructuring. However, it continued to perform some social services with selected staff members.
