Golden Peacock clears air on funeral saga

Management at Blantyre’s Golden Peacock Hotel has said it regrets an incident where a group of people brought a coffin to the hotel’s premises, describing it as pure misunderstanding.

On February 7 2023, the management and guests had a rude awakening  when community members brought the coffin containing the body of a hotel Joseph Ngulube, accusing the management of failing to provide support such as transport to ferry the deceased to his home in Mzimba.

The hotel’s sales manager Kathy Peng said top management was not aware of processes and progress that  the department  where the deceased was attached had made, until they saw the community members invading the hotel.

Said Peng: “All our employees, in eventuality of their own death and that of their spouses and children, have a funeral cover under Old Mutual. Our employees in all 11 countries we operate have this funeral cover.

“We are aware that in Malawi, an employee gets K800 000 to cover funeral expenses upon their death while K700 000 is paid out if they lose their spouses or children.”

She said it was unfortunate in the particular incident that members of the community chose to take the path they took.

However, the deceased’s uncle, Edger Mulachila told The Nation edition of February 8 that when they engaged the hotel management, they were surprised no progress was made on the concerns they raised.

The hotel was, however, forced to release K1 million.