Neef bosses, board fight in court

The High Court in Blantyre on Thursday vacated an injunction that four senior managers at National Economic Empowerment Fund Limited (Neef) obtained, restraining the institution’s board from summoning them to a disciplinary hearing.

The senior officers that were suspended in September 2020 and had their injunction vacated are chief executive officer Mervic Mangulenje, head of credit Edwin Visabwe, head of operations Alexon Mwakhula and head of finance Hilarious Nampota—all of them not implicated both in the initial audit report and in the follow up special investigation report dated November 20 2020.

Neef board chairman Cornelius Majawa in an interview yesterday disclosed that the board was preparing to summon the four again for the disciplinary hearing following the vacation of the injunction.

But the four, unsatisfied with the vacation of their injunction, have already applied for stay on the High Court’s decision and an appeal, meaning they were still not comfortable to appear for the disciplinary hearing and would rather be heard by the court.

The four had obtained the injunction at the High Court in Blantyre to stop the board from summoning them to the disciplinary hearing, but after the challenge by Neef through the Attorney General’s chamber, the court vacated it.

There is an acting CEO at Neef, Humphreys Mdyetseni, who was appointed in place of Mangulenje.