Late Bingu’s assets unfrozen

Lawyers handling the former president late Bingu wa Mutharika’s assets have said they are in the final stages of declaring and paying duty to government, following the Supreme Court’s discharge of an earlier injunction by government.

Speaking in an interview yesterday one of the lawyers, Kalekeni Kaphale, said the late Bingus’ assets under Bineth Trust were unfrozen some four months ago, but they are yet to declare the value in some accounts in order to determine duty to be paid.

“The situation now is that the late president’s assets were unfrozen. We were in the process of declaring as to how much and pay duty, but we got a setback when one of the key counsel handling the case [James Tomoka] died. This means the process has stalled for the mean time,” said Kaphale.

When The Nation contacted Solicitor General Janet Banda on the matter, she said the application government made against the assets was challenged in court.

“The Bineth Trust assets were indeed unfrozen because the injunction government made to freeze assets was successfully challenged by lawyers representing the trust,” said Banda.

In a related development, the bankruptcy case against Duwa and Tapiwa Mutharika is awaiting a hearing on the application which was filed by Francis Nyarai Ndende.

According to court records at the High Court (Commercial Division) in Lilongwe, the case has been moved to the Supreme Court in Blantyre awaiting final ruling.