By deadline day yesterday, none of the 12 Public Service Pension Trust Fund trustees had paid the K40 million fines imposed by the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM), prompting an extension.
In a written response yesterday, RBM Governor George Partridge said none of the trustees had paid the fines, adding that the deadline had been extended to March 31 2026.
He said: “The deadline for paying the fines was extended to March 31 2026 after most of the trustees appealed that our letter was only shared with them on 17 March 2026.
“Any further supervisory or regulatory action will continue to be guided by the provisions of the relevant financial services laws.”
Partridge added that the registrar could not pre-empt the specific next course of action until receipt of formal responses from the trustees to the monetary penalty administrative sanction.
When contacted for comment on Monday, the fund’s board chairperson Chizaso Nyirongo said he would call back.
Yesterday, he acknowledged receiving our questions via WhatsApp by promising to respond, but had not done so by the time we went to press.
On his part, the fund’s spokesperson Yamikani Sekeni said on Monday that RBM was in a better position to provide updates on the status of the administrative penalties, including compliance by the trustees and the next steps.
The central bank, in its capacity as registrar of financial institutions, told Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that it imposed administrative penalties on March 4 2026 for disobeying directives under Section 135 of the Pensions Act.
RBM director of Pension and Insurance Supervision Kaluso Chihana explained that the penalties followed the trustees’ failure to submit sale agreement documentation within the required timeframes.
He added that the trustees were given up to March 24 to pay K40 million in penalties.
When RBM officials appeared before PAC about two weeks ago, they told the committee that the central bank had traced approximately K72.6 billion from PSPTF in various accounts, with a significant portion frozen.
Section 135 of the Pensions Act (2023) gives the Registrar powers to impose administrative sanctions, including monetary penalties.
Subsection 3 of the section states: “A person on whom an administrative penalty has been imposed and who fails or refuses to comply commits an offence and shall, upon conviction, be liable to a fine of K100 000 000 and imprisonment for ten years.”
