By Tatyana Mbewe

Dr Mathews Chikaonda
Chairman of MTL

Lamya House, one of the great assets for the country’s major telecommunications company, the Malawi Telecommunication Limited (MTL) is set to fall under the hammer.

Company officials say the sale of magnificent building along the Kamuzu highway in Maselema, Blantyre is as part of MTL restructuring exercise aimed at improving our responsiveness to our customers and become more efficient.

MTL corporate affairs manager Tina Das has disclosed that with such a development the head office will be at the Stadium Exchange Complex near Army camp site, where MTL engineering is.

While the process will result in creation of new jobs with some 200 new jobs on the cards some existing employees will however see red as the exercise will see them being released.

MTL chief executive officer Gavin Jeffery told the press recently that the exercise is one of the strategies the company is implementing to reposition itself as a vibrant player on the market in line with modern trends in the telecommunications sector.

The restructuring rolled off two months ago and is expected to be concluded by the end of this month when the real fate of the 650 employees will be known.

It has been the tradition of Dr Mathews Chikaonda to restructure the company and sell assets. In all instances, he has been a beneficiary of such restructuring. The Reserve Bank, he bought Governor’s house. He sold Mbelwa House to his friend, Anadkat of Livingstone. He sold Press Houses and bought one for himself.  Lamya House …will go to his friends.

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 By Tatyana Mbewe

DPP Government Fuel Pricing Policy unchanged

Government has said that it has no intentions to reverse the current trend of determining fuel prices in the country, commonly called the automatic fuel pricing mechanism which sees fuel price adjusted or maintained monthly.

The sentiments comes at the heels of speculations that the Arthur Peter Mutharika government has the appetite of reversing policies that were formulated by the recent government.

Mutharika was sworn in as Malawi leader this month following the May tripartite elections that saw Joyce Banda’s Peoples Party fairing miserably while the Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive Party took the lead.

As soon as Joyce Banda took over power, her Peoples Party government adopted among others the floatation of exchange rate and the removal of subsidies on prices of commodities, specifically fuel.

 Banda took over the reigns in April 2012 following the death of Bingu and she took over power at a time when there were erratic fuel supplies.

 Although minister of finance, economic planning and development Goodall Gondwe was earlier in the month quotd as having said that some of the economic reforms implemented during the recent past government require some scrutiny because of their effects on the inflation rate, Gondwe, an internationally respected economist has said that the government has no immediate plans to scrap-off the scheme until it conducts a review on its merits and demerits.

The Malawi energy regulatory authority revised the fuel importation and pricing regime to allow full cost recovery for all fuel imports through automatic pricing mechanism to encourage fuel importing companies to import petroleum products to meet the demand based on market shares and the mandatory stock holding requirements.

Under this scheme fuel pump price have been adjusted to reflect fuel price movements on the international market to allow companies to recover importation costs on real time basis.

Pump price adjustments reflected the changes in the value of in bond landed cost of petroleum products and movement of the kwacha against the United States Dollar.

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 By Nellia Magola 

Airtel Malawi

Airtel Malawi has donated mobile devices to college of medicine in Blantyre in a bid to enhance technology information strategies among the students at the university.

Speaking after the donation Charles Kamoto chief commercial officer for Airtel Malawi said Malawi lags behind in the area of accessing ICT services.

He said the world is undergoing a historical transformation in the way people learn, work, communicate and do business as a result of ICT.

Kamoto said students at the college are supposed to enjoy freedom of information to realize their education.

According to Kamoto the mobile devices amount is about 1milion one hundred and eighty thousand kwacha.

He was quick to say that the mobile devices will help students to research and explore new medical techniques in real time and share experiences with fellow scholars across the country.

Commenting on the development college librarian Dickson Chiweza said the mobile devices have come at a right time saying it will go along way to reduce pressure on the college’s library.

Chiweza further said the college was lagging behind in issues of access to technology saying it has been relying on books.

 He assured Airtel Malawi that the authorities at the university are going to put measures to take care of the mobile devices.

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Press Release 

Watipaso Mkandawire
Myjob.com Project Mentor

July 17^th sees the launch of Myjobo.com, a new and fresh approach to careers, business, jobs and recruitment in Malawi. Myjobo.com provides a platform for free job advertising to companies and free job searching to all job seekers.

Myjobo.com is a unique free recruitment platform featuring a wide range of jobs across all industries, from internships and volunteer positions right through to the highest level of management. We believe that you should work to live, not live to work, and our site offers a wealth of benefits outside formal jobs. We call this Jobonology.

Myjobo.com brings online recruitment to Malawi

 As Malawians increasingly turn to the internet as their main source of information, Myjobo.com offers companies and job seekers alike a safe way to advertise and recruit. With Facebook and other social media becoming ever more popular, an online recruitment site is essential in today’s market. Providing companies/organizations with a potentially much larger pool of candidates than traditional recruitment methods can reach, Myjobo.com gives access to not just local, but Malawians staying abroad too.

 A completely free service, Myjobo.com provides a platform beyond formal jobs or occupations and features a careers section offering advice to those entering the job market or needing help on where to go next. If you prefer to be your own boss, there’s a section for business opportunities for budding entrepreneurs. Our forumoffers people the opportunity to interact and network with other job seekers, mentors, educators, and employers among others, sharing their experiences or asking questions to get help from our members. You can also comment or ask any questions on any particular advertised job.

 We care passionately about improving the quality of life in Malawi, so Myjobo.com accepts crowd-sourced business concepts that propose to change Malawi and Africa in general for the better in the fields of health, environment, education and agriculture. Schools and colleges can register with Myjobo.com to access textbooks for their libraries or individual students from our Book For Us Initiative. Myjobo.com lets technology change life for Malawians through our specially designed Apps, featuring challenges and contests for our members. What’s more, Myjobo.com saves you time and money, as well as the environment. A completely paperless process from start to finish, there’s no need for costly trips to the post office to collect and post letters. Using our online service helps protect your precious limited resources. You can now access Malawian talent in diaspora by the click of your mouse.

 Mr Geoffrey Banda, the Operations Director for Myjobo.com, says “Myjobo.com is a very innovative project and it is free – the first of its kind in Malawi. Companies will have their own dashboard where they can control the whole process: advertise, edit, and receive CVs. Companies can search for job seekers in our database if they do not want to advertise jobs. All this is FREE.”

“I was approached to review this project concept and I am more than convinced that Myjobo.com offers the right solutions to Malawi’s human resources initiatives at this time when technology is ruling in all aspects. Malawians in Diaspora have their prayers answered- especially those that want to go back and contribute to the development of the country.

They can apply for jobs online. “ says Mr Watipaso Mkandawire, Acting Director at Commonwealth who is mentoring the Myjobo.com Team.

For further information, please contact: Mr Geoffrey Banda (CIMA; MBA)

gbanda@myjobo.com or info@myjobo.com; website: www.myjobo.com ; Tel: +447956409087

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By Timoti Sikenela, Suleya Jana, Nellia Magola

Foreign Direct Investment

On 12^th August 2014, President Mutharika called a Press Conference, in part, to give a feedback on his successful attendance of US-African Leaders Summit organized by President Obama in Washington DC.

Serious looking Mutharika  issued an ultimatum to his Cabinet. Demanding that within 30 days, each ministry must identify areas that can attract Foreign Direct Investment. In short, each ministry must come up with an investment Blueprint for possible foreign investment.

With this ultimatum, to a layman, Mutharika’s language was music to the ear. To a layman, Mutharika was as committed as his brother, Bingu wa Mutharika during his first term 2004-2009. To a layman, Mutharika wanted to wean Malawi from Donor-dependency to self-reliance. Unfortunately, Mutharika put a cart before a horse.

The 30-Day Investment ultimatum to the Cabinet is by all practical purposes an empty talk. May be the ultimatum should have been, Within 30 Days, Identify and Come Up with Risks that Foreign Investment is likely to face in Malawi. There are lots of them.  Identify such real risks and tackle them decisively.

Sweeping known risks under the carpet while talking investments is the best way to lose relevance and respect.

With this  in mind, it can be argued that  Mutharika is just bluffing. This was a false display of confidence. He knew  that his call would  never be met unless he was prepared to fire all of them. What Mutharika is talking about is match-making and it’s not a 30 day exercise. That aside,  his own record shows that Mutharika as Cabinet minister in his brother’s administration failed to deliver anything tangible. As Minister of Education being his worst legacy. However, this is no time to scratch old wounds but rather to show Mr President why his ultimatum is illusory.

The first President, Dr Banda once  talked about the inherent interdependency between Politics and Economics. He argued that they govern each other. With political Power and Will, Mutharika can do more to turn Malawi around than issuing 30 day ultimatum to people who are illiterate in courting foreign investment. They will scramble to be on the plane only to earn allowance and go shopping. Stop issuing glasses to blind people.

Malawi is faced with self-inflicted  monumental hurdles which require the President’s unbiased attention so as to identify dangerous enemies and deal with them. Corruption is enemy number 1 to investors.

Mutharika has inherited not only a financially bankrupt government but also a government which is morally bankrupt. Government with poor governance record. Government institutions ridden with corruption and bribery scandals. The scale of Corruption in government. Corruption in judiciary. Corruption in  private sector.

No investor would consider Malawi as a destination because the current business environment poses operational risks. the environment is  toxic, hazardous and dangerous to the safety of Capital.

Foreign Investors are not easily cheated by political rhetoric. They wear very sharp and fine lenses to scrutinize country risks and opportunities. Assessing country risks is the first  Desk Research they do after they have heard all the sugar-coated stories from politicians.  On the mind of the investor, such worries persist:

1. Currency risk
2. Liquidity risk
3. Refinancing risk
4. Operational risk
5. Legal risk
6. Political risk
7. Valuation risk
8. Reputational risk
9. Volatility risk
10. Settlement risk

Which ultimately to point Profit risk. Financial risk.

Unless Malawi addresses some of these issues through investor-friendly policies and legislative framework, serious investors will bypass the country. Malawi’s resume on governance  is,  unfortunately,  in shambles. Denying the obvious amounts to helpless attempt to mislead self and potential investors.

Driving Foreign  Investments momentum.   Bingu wa Mutharika like Dr Banda was visionary but unrestrained self-enrichment mentality derailed the train. This happened when Peter Mutharika was the advisor,  closest confidante and annointed heir to the throne. Implicitly, Peter Mutharika is on the same bad wagon of looting machinery.

Industrialization. Malawi must have a Single Vision. Single Mission. Single ultimate Destination with Time Frame clearly defined. There must be state led industrialization plan. In short, President Mutharika Mutharika must  set up an Investment Committee. Institutionalized and legitimized  by act of Parliament. Give it  powers and mandates.

It is sad that one such institution was looted and declared bankrupt. Malawi Development Corporation (MDC) as it was known, was established by an act of parliament in 1964 and operations began in 1965 purely as a statutory body with wide development powers. The emphasis was to be a catalyst in development to assist government, developing with other technical partners in various fields of the economy, ranging from Agriculture, Agro-processing, Industry and property.

Looking the same example elsewhere.  Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC) – established in 1940 – is a self-financing, national Development Finance Institution. Its mandate is to promote economic growth and industrial development in South Africa.

IDC was  mandated with  development of the economic potential on a local and  regional basis by building on the unique competitive strengths of each region’s economy and assets by;

1. Leveraging public and private resources for development opportunities;
2. Fostering innovative thinking and entrepreneurial activity which support and drive economic growth;
3. Managing the spatial organisation of the area in a socially efficient manner, through the use of public land and targeted private projects in particular.

IDC has outlived the founding government, nationalist party of white minority government. South African economy or industrialization is solidly associated with IDC. Power Generation,  Mining,  Roads,  Rail,  Manufacturing in various sectors,  Financial Services and you name it.  It is now investing throughout the continent.

On the other hand,  UDF government killed the goose that laid golden eggs.  MDC was single handedly killed by shamelessly looting of  its assets. Believe it or not,  some of the borrowed money R50m from Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) for Namiwawa Hotel, for instance,  found itself in Mauritius bank accounts of individuals. Nobody was held to account.

What threatens  Malawi’s economic development agenda is the impotence of the system to deal with institutionalized corruption. Malawi prisons are full of people caught smoking dagga while real criminals are in party structures. Despite ominous indictments,  one Joseph Manyugwa went to the grave as Honourable Justice of the High  Court.

Today,  there is another  Honourable Justice John Katsala exposed in his shadowy string of strange decisions. The system will turn a blind eye.

Engine Of Economic Growth. Classical economists accord the exports of any country as an engine of its economic growth. They are of the opinion that when any country specializes in a product on the basis of its comparative advantage the division of labor and specialization becomes possible. As a result, the economies, both internal and external, of scale will be attained. The markets will be extended. In this way, the income and employment of a country will increase making economic development possible.

Fascinating countries to understudy include China, South Asian countries like South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even Brazil.  Spectacular export performance. In all these countries, there is one thing in common.  State led development strategy. Establishments of  Special economic zones. Development and utilization of Human Resources. Incentives. Ruthless crack on corruption wherever it shows its head.

Mutharika must lead from the front. 5 years is a long time. Mutharika can achieve more if he embarks on genuine reforms, re-engineering  and establishing institutions through which to unleash economic development and industrialization strategy. He will be rewarded with reappointment in 2019.

In summary, Mr President, set up Investment Committee.

1. Ensure Diversity and Experience in Investment Committee Composition
2. Build Strong Committee Leadership
3. Develop and Refresh the Investment Policy Statement so as to address all known risks.
4. Run Well Structured, But Not Overly Formalized, Meetings to energize members.
5. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. 30 Day Ultimatum is not a good way of communication.
6. Be Strategic in Manager Selection and Evaluation. Please stop appointing friends, political loyalists and relatives. Instead, look for people with the right experience, attitude and availability.
7. Focus on Implementation. Results and singing praises.
8. Do Not Forget the Foundation Staff
9. Conduct Regular Reviews of Professional Advisors

The Office of the President and Vice President should give the 5Cs.

1. Commitment
2. Coordination
3. Communication
4. Continuity
5. Completion

Last but not least,  partisan politics serves no purpose. Job Reservations for friends and relatives is self-defeating.  Only uneducated idiots find comfort in such mediocrity.  Mutharika is an educated man. Sagacious. He must rise above common follies. Only then will real investment flow into the country.

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By Sulleya Jana

FDH bank today launches FDH emoney suitable for both individual customers, agents and corporate customers. Customers who are on FDH emoney can transact using their e-value and cash sitting in their accounts interchangeably. FDH bank has launched the product inconjuction with Airtel Malawi to offer banking services to un-banked population is reached. In his speech at the launch, FDH managing director Philip Madinga, FDH emoney is secured, convenient, safe and above all friendly. Madinga said among other beneficiaries customers need not to queue on banks rather they can have transactions done at their convenient time.

 “The product will enable users to send money to their dependants at any time,” said Madinga adding six years we have been in operational in the country we have grown rapidly with 12 branches across Malawi with plans soon to launch another branch in Nchalo.

 “We are the only bank in Malawi which opens up to 4pm every workday. So we are always perfecting our service delivery for customers to enjoy timely, reliable services,” said Madinga

Madinga added that as a bank they have 28 ATMs installed across the country and planning to add ATM’s. Airtel Malawi chief commercial Officer Charles Kamoto said FDH emoney will definitely transform the land scape of e-banking services in Malawi.  “Malawians can only benefit from greater convergence between conventional banking services and the mobility that mobile telephony offers,” said Kamoto According to Kamoto the partnership will see airtel customers transferring money from mobile account to bank account and vice versa, inter-bank money transfer, chack bank balance, mini statement as well as cardless ATM withdraws.

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 By Che Ngatujanga, Nellia Magola 

Standard Bank Branch on Fire of Convenience 

Up up up in smoke. Standard Bank Branch in Lilongwe was on Saturday afternoon set ablaze. Standard Bank Division in Malawi is one of the best performing divisions for Standard Bank Group. The Bank in Malawi has done very well for its shareholders, raking in billions of kwachas every financial year. The Bank has also ranked the first for Excellent Service and Customer Satisfaction. It has raised the bar on banking standards.

The story however does not end there.  The reputable bank has also been fingered to  have deliberately turned a blind eye to the Cashgate Transactions in pursuit of profits and bonuses.

Malawi government was hit by massive plunder of public money, the scandal commonly known as Cashgate.  More than MK20bn was stolen in less than six months. The biggest chunk of the loot is traced to President Banda’s Joyce Banda Foundation and her Political Party, People’s Party. The syndicate involved range from  senior government official to office clerks.

Banda lost the May 2014 Elections. Her bitter enemy, Professor Peter Mutharika wobbled to victory with meagre number. Mutharika has vowed to expose and deal with Cashgate mess to reinstall donor confidence but also to enhance his image as Mr Fix It. On Friday, Malawi Government released the full Forensic Audit Report which has named more than 50 officials including former President Joyce Banda as the masterminds and beneficiaries of Cashgate.

On Saturday after noon, Standard Bank Branch went up in smoke. Inside Job.

It is no ordinary fire. It will never be. Malawi has of late become so notorious with arson in an its crooked effort to destroy evidence whenever an investigation to pinpoint culprits is about to begin.

Standard Bank fire must be understood in that context. Malawi has become a dangerous place to do any business with integrity. Standard Bank while it celebrated business growth, it deliberately or little did it know that the business flows were actually looted money from the government coffers and one day the clients-cum-thieves will resort to fire tactics to destroy paper trails and signatures.

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 By Oswald Dwaya, Moffat Damalankhunda  

MSB moves into Pre-Arranged Marriage with FDH Bank – Corrosive Collusion

Malawi Savings Bank now stands as a living testimony of Malawi government incompetence to run State-Owned Enterprises. ADMARC, Malawi Development Corporation (MDC) are some of thriving public institutions  that were milked to death.

Malawi Savings Bank is on the death bed after the DPP government of Bingu wa Mutharika used it to prop up Mulli Brothers, the financier of  the ruling party at the time.  Mulli Brothers also gradually became a front company for Mutharika business interests. The company dominated every government business. Mulli got a staggering total of more than  MK4bn unsecured loans. In some instances loans were interest free. Absolute criminal activity.  Mulli Brothers was also assisted by the government, through careless issuance of Sawmill Licences,  to  wreck havoc on all Malawi’s timber plantations. Nyika, Chikangawa and Mulanje Cider.

When Bingu died and Joyce Banda ascended to power, she put Mulli Brothers in a straight jacket. She cancelled all onerous contracts and forced Mulli Brothers to immediately repay all loans to MSB.

Malawi government, through the Public Private Partnership Commission,  has advertised its intention to sell MSB and also its stake in Inde Bank. The interested Bidders will have to put down MK250,000 non-refundable fee for Bid Documents.

The Orakonews can exclusively reveal that bidding process is all bogus. FDH Bank is the preferred bidder even before the bidding process begins. Inside sources from both sides, FDH and government,  have independently disclosed to the Orakonews on condition of strict anonymity that the bidding process is just to hoodwink the public. The deal is already fixed. Some Political heavyweights in the ruling party will be the silent  sleeping shareholders while others will receive cash prizes for fixing the transaction.

Mr Mpinganjira, FDH Bank CEO failed to respond to pertinent questions put to him when he was contacted by renown Nuzlines investigative journalists.

The more things change the more they remain the same. Natural Crooks never repent. Malawi Government which has dismally failed to run any public institution due to corruption, collusion and political manipulation in managing the Parastatals has announced the establishment of Malawi Development Bank.

Friday Jumbe: Former Finance Minister in UDF Government – Now Appointed Malawi Development Bank CEO

Former Finance Minister Friday Jumbe in the UDF government has been appointed Chief Executive Officer in a manner widely believed to be politically motivated. The Position was never advertised. No Interviews. He got it on a silver plate.  Jumbe previously helped himself with public resources while assisting his boss, former President Bakili Muluzi to loot with impunity. Muluzi stands accused, facing corruption charges,  of stealing MK1.7bn. Jumbe knows how they milked both MDC and ADMARC to death.

They also looted loan money, ZAR50m borrowed from Southern Africa Development Bank (DBSA) for the construction of 5 Star Namiwawa Hotel. The project collapsed and the building was converted into Malawi Revenue Authority  (MRA) Head Office.  During the Forensic Audit instituted by DBSA,  some money was traced  in  Mauritius Banks. That is how corrosive corruption is in Public institutions in the country.

Corruption has reached jaw-dropping levels in Malawi. It is not only those institutions that lose, all Malawians are condemned  to abject poverty. We all pay the price at the end of the day.

All comments to this article dwaya@orakonews.com 

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MSB Sale: The sale that irked the nation

It is easy to celebrate. After all, who doesn’t like a good party? I have observed, however, that parties are often a distraction, something to divert our minds from matters that need our attention. I have seen couples go for anniversary dinners when there are issues between them that need addressing- in the hope, perhaps, that the issues will sort themselves out, or perhaps in the desperate need for a moment or two of a carefree feeling and some reveling. Unfortunately however, the tactic never really works, for in the morning the problems are still there, and they now have to be faced while dealing with a hangover.

In this regard, Malawi can spend MK300 million celebrating independence, but in the morning, the hole left by the MK300 million expenditure will have to be filled, and the nation will still need to address the governance issues that have come to the fore with the sale of MSB bank, cashgate and all other governance failures. Don’t get me wrong. I believe there is a time to make merry and celebrate just like there is a time for everything under the sun. I just think that when it comes to independence celebrations in the Malawian sense, what we should really be celebrating is simply the right to be called a nation, and the freedom to choose our own oppressors. Not independence.

Now let me discuss what we can learn about governance from the MSB sale fiasco.

The truth about the MSB sale is that unscrupulous politicians and greedy individuals run roughshod and fleeced the company millions in a well-crafted scheme that was meant to run it down and then cheaply buy it off. The people behind the strategy included former CEO Joseph Mwanamvekha, former Reserve Bank Governor Perks Ligoya, Mulli Brothers CEO Leston Mulli, and Late President Bingu wa Mutharika himself. In recent times, new players such as the CEO of FDH Bank and other players at the State House, including the current president and his Personal Assistant, of course, had to be roped into the scheme.

Economics books will have to be re-written because we now know from the recent MSB issues that a government and a bank can actually aid a borrower to act in a risky way, both of them with full information that the risk will be assumed by a third innocent party, the Malawian taxpayer in this case.

Events that eventually led to the disposal of a national asset, the Malawi Savings Bank are a failure of good governance, and are once again a reminder to all well-meaning Malawians that our leadership tends to have strong affinity for corruption, cronyism and sometimes, outright racketeering.

That MSB has now been disposed of is water under the bridge but for the country to avoid repeating this mistake, we need to learn from what exactly happened for a healthy public asset to go bust that quickly and auctioned at near salvage value.

Mulli Brothers Limited (MBL) acquired a loan from MSB during the time that Joseph Mwananvekha was CEO of MSB (he later became Secretary to the Treasury) and Perks Ligoya, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi and Registrar of Financial Institutions. Mr Leston Mulli, the owner of MBL was a known sympathizer of the regime that time. He also happened to belong to the powerful tribal grouping that had Late President Bingu Wa Mutharika as patron. It is not a secret that both the CEO of MSB-thereafter ST- and the governor were part of that tribal grouping.

To understand the power and importance of being associated with the Mlakho Wa Alhomwe, one only needs to know that the former RBM boss though from Thyolo is actually a Mang’anja and not a Lhomwe but had to be seen to belong to the powerful tribal grouping.

The MSB Loan, based on available facts, is a perfect example of how cronyism, coupled with bad governance, and an arrogant and corrupt administration is the perfect concoction for those in power to play Russian roulette with national assets.

The MSB loan given to Mulli Brothers Limited was designed to fail.

As CEO of MSB, Joseph Mwananvekha had to approve the loan to MBL. Because the amount of the loan, for a single MSB client, was significantly large when compared to MSB’s balance sheet, the Registrar of Financial Institutions- the same person holding the office of Governor of RBM- had to give an approval and a waiver under the single client exposure rules for banks in the Malawi.

As if that was not enough, the powerful individuals involved in the deal pressured government, the majority shareholder in MSB to provide a sovereign guarantee for the MSB loan. Our government quickly obliged for they couldn’t deny the powerful MBL which at the time was supported by the President himself.

In 2009, the CEO of MSB, who had approved the MBL loan was appointed Secretary to the Treasury on secondment from MSB. Effectively, while he continued to be CEO of MSB- because that is where he continued to draw all his salary and benefits from- he was, by virtue of being ST, chairperson of the MSB Board because government was the sole shareholder. Thus on the one hand, he was making decisions as MSB CEO while on the other, reporting to the MSB Board where he was chairperson. In actual fact, he enjoyed the unusual privilege of reporting to himself.

With a sovereign guarantee for a private loan that was waived by the Registrar of Financial Institutions in terms of single client exposure rules, it became obvious to MBL that it could walk away from the loan because any such risk was indemnified by a sovereign guarantee issued by the Treasury. After several years, and because of unpredictable political developments that compromised the performance of MBL, the company indeed defaulted.
It must be obvious, however, that for the loan to reach the point of threatening to break the bank, the MSB CEO of the time and the ST, who was one and the same person (Joseph Mwanamvekha), and the Registrar of Financial Institutions (Perks Ligoya) must have known that the MBL portfolio was not performing.

Those with knowledge of the Malawian financial system are in chorus that MSB should have in fact been disposed of a couple of years back because of this MBL loan that was designed to fail by the events we have outlined above. There are even questions of whether this was not in fact a conspiracy aimed at running down the bank and acquiring it for a song. It is now an open secret that the Late Bingu wa Mutharika, at the height of his powers, desired to own a bank. Was this the strategy, and is what is happening now simply fulfilling a plan that he set in motion?

Z Allan Ntata: The Crusader

There are questions that should still linger on many minds as we learn yet another bitter lesson from the MSB saga. Why should the Treasury provide a sovereign guarantee for a private loan? If they can do so, what are the circumstances that warrant an implicit bailout for a private entrepreneur with public funds? Why and how did the Registrar of Financial Institutions fail to see a clear conflict of interest and a huge governance problem in dealing with an ST who was still CEO of a bank that the registrar is supposed to regulate? Indeed why did the Registrar of Financial Institutions fail to consider the governance implications of this transaction? How could he fail to exercise his operational independence and see that a loan facility to a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) would be a regulatory nightmare and a recipe for panic in the financial system especially when you are the same person that waived single client exposure limits?

As a final observation, I am aware that the President has weighed in with all sorts of assurances that the bank will recover its loans and that special debt collectors will appointed and so on. But this is rather convenient because the upshot of the sale is that the bank’s ownership now seems to be in private hands that seem to be strongly connected to the ruling DPP. We can talk about how a government shouldn’t run a bank all we like, and we can debate the economic sense of the sale all we like. The bottom line is that a perfectly functioning public asset was run down so that politically connected individuals could benefit at the expense of the poor Malawian taxpayer. It is a governance travesty. Period.

The post THE GOVERNANCE SIDE OF THE MSB SALE appeared first on The Malawi Oracle Times.

 By Dickson Kadango, Steve Lubani, Oswald Dwaya 

Dr of Fraud, Davies Henry Lanjesi
Puma Energy Malawi CEO,

South Africa. Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has released documents that conclusively implicate Dr Davies Lanjesi in an elaborate but amateur fraud to hijack the company from JC Mbele by secretly submitting fake and falsified documents.

According to the records in possession of The Orakonews, on 9th July 2015 Dr Lanjesi submitted an application to amend Directorship. He submitted documents to the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) in Pretoria that purported that Mr Joshua Chisa Mbele, the Founder of Ulalo Capital Investments  (Pty) Limited has resigned from the Board.

This grand plan was to have a Company Certificate that indicated that JC Mbele had finally been removed from the company and that he, Lanjesi was in charge of Ulalo group of companies. The final destination of this faceless criminal act was to steal Ulalo Assets in Malawi, TNM Shares in particular.

The Law in South Africa puts stringent requirements to make any changes to the company records held by the State.

Any changes must be accompanied by signed Directors’ and or Shareholders’ Resolutions, Certified Copies of IDs of all  Company Directors and dully completed and signed  COR 39 Form: Directors Amendment Forms.

Seeing that such requirement was a tall order, Dr Lanjesi and his accomplices took a short-cut. They submitted falsified documents. Fraud with impunity.

Dr Lanjesi submitted Certified Copy of his passport, Certified Copy JC Mbele passport but with fake face. The JC Mbele fake Passport was certified in Sunnyside, Pretoria at  Esselen Postnet.

He then submitted fake NOTICE of DIRECTORS MEETING  purportedly held on 15th June 2015 at Company’s Registered Office which is JC Mbele Residence in Fourways.

He went on to submit the Resolution of the Meeting which indicated that the meeting was attended by all three Directors namely Davies Henry Lanjesi, Douglas Tinkhani Mughogho and Joshua Chisa Mbele.

The Signed Resolution indicated that  Mbele had resigned from the Board with effect from 15th June 2015.

The Fraud was discovered yesterday by one of the Directors, Mr Douglas Mughogho during the routine online inspection of company documents. He alerted JC Mbele who took a swift action in alerting  the authorities and laying criminal charge against Dr Lanjesi. South African Police has since put Dr Lanjesi on Interpol Wanted List.

Mbele Affidavit

Documents as released by Department of Trade & Industry  to confirm fraud.

1. Certified Copy of Fake Mbele Passport
2. Certified Copy of Lanjesi Passport
3. Signed CIPC Form
4. Fake Directors Resolution and Resignation of Mbele
5. Fake Notice of Directors Meeting

It is incredible that Dr Lanjesi, a highly educated man with senior position in Malawi’s Private Sector could embark on such shameless criminal conduct. Dr Lanjesi has been involved in a bitter commercial matter, fighting for the control of Ulalo Capital Investments Limited which hold more than 50 Million TNM Shares valued at  almost MK350,000,000 at current share price.

They had won the first court battle under very suspicious circumstances which pointed to possible corruption in Malawi’s Judiciary. The learned Judge John Katsala is under a cloud of shame for throwing the case in favour of Lanjesi, Mapunda and Zebunisa Tembo despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He sat on the matter for 4 years without issuing Judgment. When he finally pronounced it, the Judgment had all the hallmarks of bias and collusion. The Judgment was not worth the piece of paper it was written on. It served no purpose. If it had any shred of logic then Dr Lanjesi, James Mapunda and their lady accomplice would have used it without going through the treacherous route of fraud. This fraud is the final desperate resort. Kicking of the dying horses.

They have since suffered series of humiliating defeats. They lost the Settlement of Claims in which they claimed MK316,000,000 from Mbele.  Mbele’s Lawyer, Wapona Kita overturned the tables.

The Supreme Court of Appeal had no kind words either. Such defeats have rendered Dr Lanjesi and his team helpless, hopeless and desperate.

Then came this Notice in Malawi Nation:

End July 2015,  the Fake Shareholders of Ulalo Capital Investments Limited put a brave NOTICE in The Malawi Nation, Malawi’s leading daily newspaper, Warning the Public not to deal with Joshua Chisa Mbele. What the public did not know was that these were crooks masquerading as honest and credible individuals who presented themselves as victims.

Today, the curtain has come down. The truth is out in the open for everybody to see that they used fraudulent powers to discredit  an innocent person who has created the company for the benefit of all shareholders. JC Mbele is one of the brightest entrepreneurs that Malawi has produced to date.

JC Mbele is suing the Nation for MK35,000,000  in damages

The post Exclusive: Dr Davies Henry Lanjesi Commits Fraud, South African Police Open Criminal Docket appeared first on The Malawi Oracle Times.

For immediate release

17 March, 2014

Ministry of Information,Tourism and Civic Education

Capital City

Lilongwe 3

Minister Of Information Jappie Mhango

We want to condemn the fabrications that appeared in the Malawi News article of 12 March 2016 titled, “Trouble at Press.” This article has been designed to tarnish the image of Government and the DPP through their baseless allegations. Following our investigations, we have found out that it is the Senior Management at PCL that are behind this article. We have also established that it is in fact, the conduct and performance of some Senior Management themselves that have brought a mess at PCL, and not the presence of any DPP functionaries on the PCL Board.

Press Trust owns PCL and has several shareholders. When vacancies occur on the Board of Trustees, it is the remaining Trustees who appoint new Trustees to self-perpetuate the Board. It is also Trustees who appoint Members to the Board of PCL. The Board of Press Trust has always been more Malawi Congress Party (MCP) than any other party. It has certainly never been more DPP in orientation.

Currently, the Trustees include the MCP Treasurer General, Mr Tony Kandiero, and Hon Nancy Tembo, who is a former MCP Parliamentarian, as well as an MCP nominee on the Malawi Electoral Commission. Also on this Board are Dr George Kayambo and Mrs Chioko who are certainly not DPP sympathizers.

Mr Chidyaonga and Prof Peter Mwanza ceased to be Press Trustees after serving their maximum two terms of six years each. The question of overstaying therefore cannot arise. By law, the remaining Press Trustees, who are far from being DPP sympathizers, appointed their replacements, i.e., Mr Chisanga and Mr Chirwa. Under the same law, the same Board of Trustees appointed Mr Chidyaonga and Prof Mwanza to the PCL Board.

In these appointments, the Press Trustees followed the prescribed legal procedures and violated no law whatsoever. This Board of Trustees had no DPP Members when they made these appointments. Moreover, the DPP, or Government, by law, and in practice, have never had anything to do with appointments of Members to either of the two Boards.

The two new Trustees are not DPP functionaries or sympathizers. Prof Peter Mwanza, who was just appointed to the Board of PCL is no longer a DPP member. He joined the Peoples Party (PP) and was a Cabinet Minister after the death of Late Bingu. He has never returned to the DPP.

Dr Mathews Chikaonda
Captain of Industry Exposed and Cornered

Therefore, the allegation that Prof Mwanza and Mr Chidyaonga participated in the decision to appoint the two new Trustees, and their own appointment is an outrageous fabrication. The news reporter was corrected in the same article by the Chief Executive Officer of Press Trust, but he ignored that fact. This is mediocre journalism and we condemn it wholeheartedly. Therefore, the suggestion that these current Board appointments are part of a DPP plot to snatch and control PCL as their financing instrument is an ill-conceived absurdity.

It is obvious that schemers of this article, i.e., the PCL Management, want, not only to tarnish DPP’s image, but also to mask their own rot in PCL.  In this article, PCL Management have faulted DPP on governance. They have no moral mandate to do so. The appointment of the current Group Chief Executive (GCE) 14 years ago never went through Board interviews nor other proper legal channels. Despite serious reservations from Press Trustees at that time, he was just hand-picked by the then President and imposed on the Board as the GCE of PCL. He has had three times three-year contracts and a final five-year contract approved by the Board. This is against good corporate governance as we know it.

This time, he asked for an 18-month extension on top of the above four contracts. He then participated in the discussions and decision to grant this 18-month extension. This is illegal and unacceptable. Fortunately, the Trustees reduced this extension to nine months. Thus, both his appointment 14 years ago and the irregular extension of his contract now have been troublesome “illegalities.”

There is no Board Meeting whose Minutes can confirm approvals for such car allowances. These finance manoeuvres are therefore not just obscene, but are also illegal and criminal conduct. Fortunately, the Trustees have put a stop to these immoral and callous allowances. We also hear that there are some clandestine interviews going on, some even at night, to seek and prepare friends or relatives for high positions in PCL. We want to make sure that this illegality and rot must stop.

During his tenure, the GCE closed eleven (11) Press companies. These were:

1. Press Poultry
2. Central Poultry
3. Hardware and General Dealers
4. Press Furniture and Joinery
5. Enterprise Containers
6. Malawi Pharmacies Limited
7. McConnell and Company
8. Tambala Food Products
9. Press Bakeries
10. Press Transport, and
11. PGI Industries

This was totally against the spirit and wishes of the founder of PCL, i.e., the Late Ngwazi Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda. We all remember how he wanted PCL to stimulate economic activity throughout Malawi. He wanted it to be a fountain of employment and a source of training for Malawian management skills. Obviously, the GCE has completely destroyed the intended character of PCL.

The GCE promised to replace these closed companies with new and more vibrant companies, in his view. However, he has totally failed in several projects in that regard. These include:

1. Tourism Cape Maclear Resort
2. Energy-Solar and Hydropower
3. PCL Head Office at Top Mandala
4. PTC Zambia Operations
5. Chapima Heights Residential Project
6. Ethanol Flex Vehicles
7. Maldeco Expansion (new fishing vessel disaster)

The current remaining units of PCL include the following, some of which have problems or outstanding issues:

1. National Bank
2. TNM Ltd
3. Ethanol Company
4. PUMA Energy Ltd and
5. MacSteel Ltd
6. BBGL Carlsberg Malawi Ltd (PCL lost majority shareholding)
7. Press Properties (there are so many uncertainties)
8. Maldeco (technically insolvent)
9. Press Cane Ltd (ownership battle in court)
10. MTL (technically insolvent)
11. PTC (technically insolvent)

Only the top five have no problems, but the bottom six have one major challenge or other. Some of them are technically insolvent, while others have legal ownership challenges.

Recently the GCE lied about the closing of twenty PTC Shops. He claimed that he was bypassed by the PTC Board in this process. The fact, however, is that he pushed the PCL Board Members for a speedy decision to close these shops. This further destroyed the true intended service nature of these shops which were all being run most profitably before.

The revelations of this information have compelled Government, as a Majority Shareholder, to seek some information from PCL Management. This was done in a letter from the Attorney General, through the CEO of Press Trust. The requested information included:

1. Executive packages for top Management in the last five years.
2. Bonus payments paid to top Management in the past five years.
3. The Dividend Payment Policy. The Policy requires that 35% of profits after tax should be paid to shareholders. However, Management has been paying only 16% or less.
4. Explanation on how Government shareholding was diluted from 49% to 44.45%. We understand that this dilution of peoples’ shareholding in PCL came as a result of a very poor Management decision.

It is now six months after this request was sent but no response has come. The shareholders are now concerned. They are worried about what other irregularities or criminal activities are being hidden by the PCL Management. We want to know why all these companies were sold and how so many new proposed companies failed. In addition, there are stories of billions of Kwacha missing from PTC, Carlsberg and elsewhere in the group. We demand forensic audits done in those companies.

The list of alleged irregularities and illegal activities is a long one. PCL’s reluctance to provide the requested information is even more suspicious. Government is now forced to demand an urgent Shareholders meeting to assess the extent of the mismanagement and start taking remedial measures.

It is therefore very sad and totally unacceptable that with all this rot at PCL, the Senior Management is trying to manufacture “DPP gurus” on the PCL and Press Trust Boards as well as an alleged DPP scheme to snatch PCL away from other shareholders.

JAPPIE MHANGO MP

MINISTER OF INFORMATION, TOURISM AND CIVIC EDUCATION

GOVERNMENT SPOKERPERSON

The post Malawi Government Exposes Dr Mathews A P Chikaonda of Press Corporation appeared first on The Malawi Oracle Times.

 By Elvis Chaweza, Oswald Dwaya, Botoman Nthininga  

Press Corporation Cemetery: Where failed subsidiaries are laid to rest……. 

The President of Malawi, Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika, popularly known as APM, will have an enduring legacy. The legacy of the man who called the spade by its real name. He hated mediocrity with passion.  Beating about the bush was not part of his character. In the month of March 2016, APM added few colors to his Law Doctorate. He put the leader of false Prophets TB Joshua where he belonged. Corn-artist.  TB Joshua who is famous for provoking African leaders with his opportunistic ‘death-threats’ prophecies got more than what he bargained for. He expected a government entourage to visit him in Lagos as what used to happen in the days of President Joyce Banda. TB Joshua got shamboked.

On 16th March 2016, Mutharika Government put Professor Matthews Chikaonda in a straight jacket. Chikaonda who has presided over the demise of Press Corporation for more than 14 years had grown big wings. It was time to clip the wings of the Eagle. That’s exactly what APM government did. In short, Hon Jappie Mhango, the Minister of Information told the nation that Chikaonda was nothing but a corrupt captain who served his stomach more than he steered the ship to success. Chikaonda lived an exaggerated  life of a successful Captain of Industry while ominous evidence of failure was everywhere for everyone to see. The list of failed and buried subsidiaries was hang on the washing line for the nation to see.

Professor Chikaonda overstayed at Press Corporation. He led the organization with amazing incompetence to its demise over the years. Whatever he touched failed yet he ruled with iron fist, shameless pride  and incredible arrogance towards the government.

Professor Chikaonda held himself in the highest esteem, often too good for himself and the organization he led. He was overly too talkative, too educated, too knowledgeable to listen to anybody in the company. His views were views of the board. He hired and fired at the fall of the hat. He engineered the success of those he loved and dug deeper graves for those who crossed his path.

He lacked charisma  to sustain strategic business relationships. The demise of the solar deal with a Swiss based company is a good example of his outstanding failures….

He abused his position by diverting company assets to himself. Wherever he worked, Chikaonda changed the Company Housing policies to suit his insatiable greed. As the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi, he ‘bought’ the Governor’s house. At the Press Corporation, he ‘bought’ the Group Chief Executive’s house. In both instances, it was done in the name of containing the costs of the organizations. With outstanding impunity, Professor Chikaonda diverted  business from Press Corporation Subsidiaries to businesses of his friends, where he was a silent shareholder.  Here is a man who blindfolded everyone in pursuit of his personal secret future pension.

It was an open secret that the Professor cultivated a strong but abnormal relationship with Livingstone Holdings, one of the most corrupt business empires in Malawi led by one Hitesh Anadkat.

The nation witnessed in horror as Press Corporation made strange decisions one after the other in favor Livingstone Holdings. Out of blue, Livingstone Holdings became one of the major Shareholders of both MTL and TNM. Anadkat became the Vice Chairman of TNM. The Chief Mbelwa House in Lilongwe City Center, the property of Press Properties,  was sold to Livingstone Holdings at a discount. Only and only Chikaonda could  explain the sale.

Malawi Government as the main shareholder of Press Corporation through the Press Trust, the public trust must move swiftly to do what is legally enforceable. Chikaonda must be fully investigated, prosecuted and jailed if proven guilty as charged. He must enjoy his secret pension while at Maula Prison. We need Professors in Prisons to give free lectures to other offenders so that they come out well educated.

For the sake of the company which is duo-listed on London Stock Exchange (receiving) and Malawi Stock Exchange, Professor Chikaonda must step down immediately. He is more of a liability as of now.

This will serve as the greatest lesson to the private sector.

The post Crash-landing of Press Corporation Eagle appeared first on The Malawi Oracle Times.

 By Moffat Damalankhunda  

Chayamba House – Blantyre 
Press Corporation Head Office

The reliable sources within the Press Group has leaked the top secret on who will be replacing the embattled Prof. Matthews Chikaonda whose request to stay longer was refused by Press Trust instead forced to retire in December 2016.

The task to find the suitable replacement for Malawi’s top most job was a lucrative assignment awarded to KPMG Malawi.

It is neither George Partridge of National Bank nor Pius Mulipa, the de facto successor.

It is Abel Chanje

He will take over from the man who has been on the helm for the past 14 years. Abel will face a daunting task to re-engineer Press Corporation back to its previous glory. To resurrect a ship which was in autopilot as the Capitain was busy with personal enrichment schemes.   The nation’s eyes will be fixed on Abel,  the former CEO of Carlsberg Breweries Malawi Limited. Press Corporation lost its majority shareholding to the parent Danish Company.

Chanje, a closer confidante of Chikaonda faced tough times  at Carlsberg when  K5.2bn Cashgate was uncovered. The scandal led to the suspension of the Financial Controller Geobra Kamanga, his deputy Austin Phiri and Ezzra Njobvu, the Procurement Manager who were suspected to have colluded to defraud the company.

The post Abel Chanje Clinches Press Corporation Top Job appeared first on The Malawi Oracle Times.

 By William Kadikira, Moses Chilemba 

Telekom Networks Malawi (TNM) Company number 4029 was the pioneer mobile network in Malawi. Listed on the Malawi stock exchange in 2008.  It was established in 1995 as a joint venture between Telekom Malaysia and the then government owned Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL), In April 2007 Telekom Malaysia sold its 60% majority stake in TNM.

TNM is now wholly Malawian owned.

TNM is a strong brand in Malawi. This strength comes from being the first mobile operator and more especially that it is a Malawian company, with innovative products and services. Geographically TNM network covers over 74% of Malawi. TNM operates 3.5 generation network enabling advanced high speed broadband multimedia services, in addition to GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks.TNM offers a comprehensive range of prepaid and postpaid services, these include voice and data connectivity. TNM has been a pioneer of many services in Malawi and became the first mobile operator in Malawi to launch 3.5G broadband services in Malawi offering cutting edge services such as video calls, video and music streaming, high speed wireless internet access services.

Despite such a colorful introduction, TNM has failed to be the market leader in Malawi. Airtel is by far Malawi’s premier mobile company with superior services.  What would be wrong with TNM?

We take a closer look.

On 31 March, Management released the TNM | 2015 abridged financial results. It is the purpose of this article to point out basic performance issues which Management and Directors of the company have missed to asses overtime.  Undeniably, TNM has unhappy shareholders since its IPO debut.

For clarity sake, this article will define parameters generally employed to asses company performance.

Long-Term Earnings Growth

Earnings are what’s left of a firm’s revenues after it pays all of its expenses, costs, and taxes. Companies whose earnings grow faster than those of their industry peers usually see better price performance for their stocks.

Growth rates refer to the amount of increase that a specific variable has gained within a specific period and context. For investors, this typically represents the compounded annualized rate of growth of a company’s revenues, earnings, dividends and even macro concepts – such as the economy as a whole.

The Death of TNM Shareholder’s Value 

Using US$ as a base currency to measure TNM growth or contraction of shareholders value.

TNM was listed on Malawi stock exchange (MSE) in October 2018. The IPO Share Price was MK2.00. The Malawi Kwacha Exchange Rate to US Dollar was US$1.00 = MK148 meaning the TNM share price at IPO was 1.35Cents (US$)

Below is Malawi Kwacha Exchange Rate: US$ since 2008

Note: Malawi Kwacha has lost the Purchasing Power /Depreciated by almost 370% since 2008

Today, the TNM share price is MK4.00. Malawi Kwacha Exchange Rate to US Dolar is US$1.00 = MK690 meaning the share price in US$ is down to 0.58Cents(US$).  The TNM share has lost 0.77Cents(US$) which represents a loss 57%.

Certainly, one doesn’t need to go to Harvard Business School  to understand what this decline in value entails. In simple terms it means the following:  In 2008 US$1.00 bought 74 TNM share. Today, US$1.00 buys 172 TNM shares. TNM Shares have plummeted and wiped shareholders money in the process. When shareholders sell their shares today, they make massive losses because whatever the they fetch can’t purchase what they would have purchased with the same money 8 years ago.

TNM shares for an ordinary Malawian represent massive losses on their initial capital. It must be pointed out that Malawi like Zimbabwe and Zambia are dollarized economies.The services are quoted and charged in united states dollar equivalent.

Dividends Evaluation 

TNM started by paying 2Tambala per share (0.0135 Cents US$).  Today it is paying 10Tambala (0.0145 Cents US$). If one is not careful, it is tempting to say TNM is paying a good dividend but it has hardly moved. Shareholders are getting the same dividend they used to get 8 years ago while the purchasing power of the money has depreciated by more than 370%  

TNM Directors’ Latitude 

It can be observed that the Directors of TNM take shareholders for-granted with amazing impunity.  The Media Release ended with:

*The Directors propose a final dividend of 10 (ten) Tambala per share out of the profits of the company for the year ended 31 December 2015, to be declared at the forthcoming Annual General Meeting.

The Annual General Meeting was scheduled to take place on 25th May. The Dividends Declared will be paid on 17th June 2016.

In short, Shareholders have waited for 3 months to receive dividends already declared. This sounds mundane but it is actually a big deal and it explains why the share price has collapsed or retracted. Year ended 31 December 2015, dividend only received in June.

Small shareholders who survive on TNM dividends were left with no option but leak bleeding wounds. They auctioned (kupinyolitsa) their shares on a black market,  hedging the declared dividend as a guarantee.  Those that could afford, went to effect transfer which pushed share price down. These were transactions of desperate sellers thereby affecting billions of shares in the process.

In addition, this delay  was both grossly unfair and illegal on financial front considering that in Malawi, the Commercial Bank interest rate is above 35%. Once dividends are declared, the funds no longer belong to the company. In this delay, the company unduly benefited from shareholders dividends.

TNM has 10,040,450,000 at 10tambala per share it means MK100.4m is unnecessarily detained from Shareholders. During that period the money earmarked for Dividends has earned 35% or almost MK17m

Another question of interest arises. Why did TNM Directors decide to issue more than 10 billion shares for a small market like Malawi which has serious liquidity problems? Such a huge number had its own implications. TNM IPO was not without controversy. Accusations of collusion, fraud, money laundering and inside trading emerged.

TNM shares have been very sluggish ever since. The market lost appetite. Many investors that bought shares during IPO are stuck with them. They watch value going down the drain  helplessly.

The Captains of industry will argue and say shareholders must look to the underlying book value of the company. Well, shareholders don’t sell the book value. They sell the shares while relying on the miserable dividends. The only time that the book value counts is when another company comes to acquire TNM. Even then, more than a million factors will come into play in addition to the negotiating team.

TNM is majority owned by Malawi Telecommunication Limited (MTL) controlled by Press Corporation.

For now, only Directors are eating well from TNM Business.

The post TNM has killed investors appetite to buy shares on Malawi Stock Exchange appeared first on The Malawi Oracle Times.

KRISHNA SAVJANI, OBE SC | Managing Partner, Savjani & Co

BACKGROUND

Krishna Savjani OBE SC, Barrister-at-Law (England), Senior Counsel (SC)(Malawi), the Honorary British Consul is the firm’s Sole Equity Partner. Mr Savjani was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

According to Chambers Global, who have interviewed parties in Malawi and elsewhere Krishna Savjani has been described as “equally at home in the boardroom and the courtroom”. Clients admire his combination of local understanding and international experience and praise his “ability to plan ahead”. Mr Savjani has also been described as “superb” and “clever”. He is widely assessed by the market as “the country’s leading commercial and banking lawyer”. He is sought out for the most complex matters and praised for the speed and depth of his advice:  “He is an astute man, methodical and a deep thinker”.  Corporate investors appreciate his discreet approach and in-depth knowledge of the Malawian market.

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Barrister-at-law (Gray’s Inn)

CAREERS SUMMARY

1977 – to date   Sole Equity Partner at Savjani & Co

AWARDS & ACCOLADES

1. Order of the British Empire (OBE) awarded by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
2. Senior Counsel – appointment made by the President of Malawi
3. Honorary British Consul since 1998
4. Honorary legal advisor to the British High Commission
5. Listed as Malawi’s leading lawyer in Chamber’s Global and as the only lawyer in Band 1.
6. A member of the four person Advisory Committee (comprising the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, the President of the Malawi Law Society and Mr. Savjani) on the appointment of Senior Counsel
7. Chairman of the Malawi Stock Exchange from 2000 to 2010
8. Chairman of the Giants Group of Malawi
9. Chairman of the Board of Governors of South End Primary and Secondary Schools
10. Trustee of the Friends of Sick Children
11. Chairman of Ameca Healthcare Trust

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

• Banking, project and structured finance and securitization
• Corporate  / mergers and acquisitions / share sales / restructuring
• Commercial
• Capital markets, listings (bonds, bonus issues, rights issues)
• Mining
• Litigation

Contact Details: : +265 1 824 555 / +265 1 824281

E: savjaniandco@africa-online.net
L: Ground Floor, Hannover House, Hannover Avenue – Blantyre.
B: P.O. Box 2790, Blantyre, Malawi.

The post Be Inspired: Krishna Savjani, OBE SC – Malawi’s leading minds at Law appeared first on The Malawi Oracle Times.

 By Botomani Nthininga, DK Kadango  

In a wonderful paper titled Unskilled and Unaware of it, two social psychologists from Cornell University, Justin Kruger and David Dunning shared an incredibly funny story of Mr. McArthur Wheeler. Although it is funny, the story actually beautifully demonstrates an excellent concept – a kind of cognitive bias.

As David Dunning read through the article, a thought washed over him.  If McArthur Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.

Both the psychologists Dunning and Kruger got story of Mr. McArthur. They decided to study it more deeply. The psychologists were interested to study about the utter confidence of Wheeler that made him believe he’d be able to foil the security cameras with lemon juice on his face. He had the confidence, but he clearly wasn’t competent enough…Why was he so sure he’d succeed?

Their study finally demonstrated that the less competent an individual is at a specific task, the more likely they are to inflate their self-appraised competence in relationship to that task. This phenomenon is today known as the Dunning–Kruger effect.

Wheeler had walked into two Pittsburgh banks and attempted to rob them in broad daylight.  What made the case peculiar is that he made no visible attempt at disguise.  The surveillance tapes were key to his arrest.  There he was with a gun, standing in front of a teller demanding money.  Yet, when arrested, Wheeler was completely disbelieving.  “But I wore the juice,” he said.  He was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one’s face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to video cameras.

Speaking to several Pittsburgh police detectives who had been involved in Wheeler’s arrest.  Commander Ronald Freeman said that Wheeler had not gone into “this thing” blindly but had performed a variety of tests prior to the robbery.  Sergeant Wally Long provided additional details — “although Wheeler reported the lemon juice was burning his face and his eyes, and he was having trouble (seeing) and had to squint, he had tested the theory, and it seemed to work.”   He had snapped a Polaroid picture of himself and wasn’t anywhere to be found in the image.

Ignorance is a state of being uninformed  or lack of knowledge. Ignorance is distinguished from stupidity, although both can lead to unwise acts. Ignorance is not just a blank space on a person’s mental map. It has contours and coherence and rules of operation as well.

Individuals with superficial knowledge of a topic or subject may be worse off than people who know absolutely nothing. As Charles Darwin observed, ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

Ignorance can stifle learning, especially if the ignorant person believes that he or she is not ignorant. A person who falsely believes he or she is knowledgeable will not seek out clarification of his or her beliefs, but rather rely on his or her ignorant position. He or she may also reject valid but contrary information, neither realizing its importance nor understanding it.

Dunning wondered whether it was possible to measure one’s self-assessed level of competence against something a little more objective — say, actual competence.  Within weeks, he and his graduate student, Justin Kruger, had organized a program of research.  Their paper, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments. It  was published in 1999.

Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.  Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.”

Our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence.  But just how prevalent is this effect?

There have been many psychological studies that tell us what we see and what we hear is shaped by our preferences, our wishes, our fears, our desires and so forth.  We literally see the world the way we want to see it.  But the Dunning-Kruger effect suggests that there is a problem beyond that.  Even if you are just the most honest, impartial person that you could be, you would still have a problem — namely, when your knowledge or expertise is imperfect, you really don’t know it.  Left to your own devices, you just don’t know it.   We’re not very good at knowing what we don’t know. Knowing what you don’t know is  supposedly the hallmark of an intelligent person.

It’s knowing that there are things you don’t know that you don’t know. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech about “unknown unknowns.”  It went something like this: “There are things we know we know about terrorism.  There are things we know we don’t know.  And there are things that are unknown unknowns.  We don’t know that we don’t know.

The Dunning–Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately.

Their research also suggests corollaries: highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others. The bias was first experimentally observed by David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University in 1999. They postulated that the effect is the result of internal illusion in the unskilled, and external misperception in the skilled: The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.

This pattern of over-estimating competence was seen in studies of skills as diverse as reading comprehension, practicing medicine, operating a motor vehicle, and playing games such as chess or tennis. Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:

1. fail to recognize their own lack of skill
2. fail to recognize the extent of their inadequacy
3. fail to accurately gauge skill in others
4. recognize and acknowledge their own lack of skill only after they are exposed to training for that skill

Dunning has since drawn an analogy – the anosognosia of everyday life – with a condition in which a person who experiences a physical disability because of brain injury seems unaware of, or denies the existence of, the disability, even for dramatic impairments such as blindness or paralysis: If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent. The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.

David Dunning is Professor of Psychology at Cornell University. As an experimental social psychologist, Dr. Dunning is a fellow of both the American Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association. He has published over 80 scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and commentaries, and has also served as an associate editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. He is currently the Executive Officer of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, an international organization with over 5,600 members, as well as the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology. He has also spent time as a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan, Yale University, the University of Mannheim (Germany), and the University of Cologne (Germany).

His research focuses primarily on the accuracy with which people view themselves and their peers. In his most widely-cited work, he showed that people tend to hold flattering opinions of themselves and their decisions that cannot be justified from objective evidence—a phenomenon that carries many implications for health, education, the workplace, and economic exchange.

Dunning’s other research focuses on decision-making in various settings. In work on economic games, he examines the extent to which choices that seem economic actually hinge more on psychological factors, such as social norms and emotion. In particular, he documents that people trust complete strangers in situations in which the economic analysis would suggest no trust whatsoever, finding that this decision is prompted more by psychological forces than economic concerns.

In his psychology and law research, he focuses on diagnosing eyewitness accuracy—striving to determine which questions should be asked of the eyewitness to determine whether an identification is accurate or erroneous. In more recent work on visual and auditory perception, he has shown that people’s motives and desires influence what they literally see and hear in their physical environment. Thus, the world people believe they inhabit is importantly shaped by intrapsychic events occurring within themselves.

Comment

Malawi got independence in 1964. It has been receiving financial aid ever since. Nothing of our own initiative has taken off the ground and paid dividends. Are we not being another Mr. McArthur Wheeler? It seems we are in self-denial mode of national and shared incompetence. We truthfully believe we are trying our best. The more we deny, the more we sink into the abyss of poverty – Editor  

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By Timoti Sikenela, Suleya Jana, Nellia Magola

On 12^th August 2014, President Mutharika called a Press Conference, in part, to give a feedback on his successful attendance of US-African Leaders Summit organized by President Obama in Washington DC.

Serious looking Mutharika  issued an ultimatum to his Cabinet. Demanding that within 30 days, each ministry must identify areas that can attract Foreign Direct Investment. In short, each ministry must come up with an investment Blueprint for possible foreign investment.

With this ultimatum, to a layman, Mutharika’s language was music to the ear. To a layman, Mutharika was as committed as his brother, Bingu wa Mutharika during his first term 2004-2009. To a layman, Mutharika wanted to wean Malawi from Donor-dependency to self-reliance. Unfortunately, Mutharika put a cart before a horse.

The 30-Day Investment ultimatum to the Cabinet is by all practical purposes an empty talk. May be the ultimatum should have been, Within 30 Days, Identify and Come Up with Risks that Foreign Investment is likely to face in Malawi. There are lots of them.  Identify such real risks and tackle them decisively.

Sweeping known risks under the carpet while talking investments is the best way to lose relevance and respect.

With this  in mind, it can be argued that  Mutharika is just bluffing. This was a false display of confidence. He knew  that his call would  never be met unless he was prepared to fire all of them. What Mutharika is talking about is match-making and it’s not a 30 day exercise. That aside,  his own record shows that Mutharika as Cabinet minister in his brother’s administration failed to deliver anything tangible. As Minister of Education being his worst legacy. However, this is no time to scratch old wounds but rather to show Mr President why his ultimatum is illusory.

The first President, Dr Banda once  talked about the inherent interdependency between Politics and Economics. He argued that they govern each other. With political Power and Will, Mutharika can do more to turn Malawi around than issuing 30 day ultimatum to people who are illiterate in courting foreign investment. They will scramble to be on the plane only to earn allowance and go shopping. Stop issuing glasses to blind people.

Malawi is faced with self-inflicted  monumental hurdles which require the President’s unbiased attention so as to identify dangerous enemies and deal with them. Corruption is enemy number 1 to investors.

Mutharika has inherited not only a financially bankrupt government but also a government which is morally bankrupt. Government with poor governance record. Government institutions ridden with corruption and bribery scandals. The scale of Corruption in government. Corruption in judiciary. Corruption in  private sector.

No investor would consider Malawi as a destination because the current business environment poses operational risks. the environment is  toxic, hazardous and dangerous to the safety of Capital.

Foreign Investors are not easily cheated by political rhetoric. They wear very sharp and fine lenses to scrutinize country risks and opportunities. Assessing country risks is the first  Desk Research they do after they have heard all the sugar-coated stories from politicians.  On the mind of the investor, such worries persist:

1. Currency risk
2. Liquidity risk
3. Refinancing risk
4. Operational risk
5. Legal risk
6. Political risk
7. Valuation risk
8. Reputational risk
9. Volatility risk
10. Settlement risk

Which ultimately to point Profit risk. Financial risk.

Unless Malawi addresses some of these issues through investor-friendly policies and legislative framework, serious investors will bypass the country. Malawi’s resume on governance  is,  unfortunately,  in shambles. Denying the obvious amounts to helpless attempt to mislead self and potential investors.

Driving Foreign  Investments momentum.   Bingu wa Mutharika like Dr Banda was visionary but unrestrained self-enrichment mentality derailed the train. This happened when Peter Mutharika was the advisor,  closest confidante and annointed heir to the throne. Implicitly, Peter Mutharika is on the same bad wagon of looting machinery.

Industrialization. Malawi must have a Single Vision. Single Mission. Single ultimate Destination with Time Frame clearly defined. There must be state led industrialization plan. In short, President Mutharika Mutharika must  set up an Investment Committee. Institutionalized and legitimized  by act of Parliament. Give it  powers and mandates.

It is sad that one such institution was looted and declared bankrupt. Malawi Development Corporation (MDC) as it was known, was established by an act of parliament in 1964 and operations began in 1965 purely as a statutory body with wide development powers. The emphasis was to be a catalyst in development to assist government, developing with other technical partners in various fields of the economy, ranging from Agriculture, Agro-processing, Industry and property.

Looking the same example elsewhere.  Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC) – established in 1940 – is a self-financing, national Development Finance Institution. Its mandate is to promote economic growth and industrial development in South Africa.

IDC was  mandated with  development of the economic potential on a local and  regional basis by building on the unique competitive strengths of each region’s economy and assets by;

1. Leveraging public and private resources for development opportunities;
2. Fostering innovative thinking and entrepreneurial activity which support and drive economic growth;
3. Managing the spatial organisation of the area in a socially efficient manner, through the use of public land and targeted private projects in particular.

IDC has outlived the founding government, nationalist party of white minority government. South African economy or industrialization is solidly associated with IDC. Power Generation,  Mining,  Roads,  Rail,  Manufacturing in various sectors,  Financial Services and you name it.  It is now investing throughout the continent.

On the other hand,  UDF government killed the goose that laid golden eggs.  MDC was single handedly killed by shamelessly looting of  its assets. Believe it or not,  some of the borrowed money R50m from Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) for Namiwawa Hotel, for instance,  found itself in Mauritius bank accounts of individuals. Nobody was held to account.

What threatens  Malawi’s economic development agenda is the impotence of the system to deal with institutionalized corruption. Malawi prisons are full of people caught smoking dagga while real criminals are in party structures. Despite ominous indictments,  one Joseph Manyugwa went to the grave as Honourable Justice of the High  Court.

Today,  there is another  Honourable Justice John Katsala exposed in his shadowy string of strange decisions. The system will turn a blind eye.

Engine Of Economic Growth. Classical economists accord the exports of any country as an engine of its economic growth. They are of the opinion that when any country specializes in a product on the basis of its comparative advantage the division of labor and specialization becomes possible. As a result, the economies, both internal and external, of scale will be attained. The markets will be extended. In this way, the income and employment of a country will increase making economic development possible.

Fascinating countries to understudy include China, South Asian countries like South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even Brazil.  Spectacular export performance. In all these countries, there is one thing in common.  State led development strategy. Establishments of  Special economic zones. Development and utilization of Human Resources. Incentives. Ruthless crack on corruption wherever it shows its head.

Mutharika must lead from the front. 5 years is a long time. Mutharika can achieve more if he embarks on genuine reforms, re-engineering  and establishing institutions through which to unleash economic development and industrialization strategy. He will be rewarded with reappointment in 2019.

In summary, Mr President, set up Investment Committee.

1. Ensure Diversity and Experience in Investment Committee Composition
2. Build Strong Committee Leadership
3. Develop and Refresh the Investment Policy Statement so as to address all known risks.
4. Run Well Structured, But Not Overly Formalized, Meetings to energize members.
5. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. 30 Day Ultimatum is not a good way of communication.
6. Be Strategic in Manager Selection and Evaluation. Please stop appointing friends, political loyalists and relatives. Instead, look for people with the right experience, attitude and availability.
7. Focus on Implementation. Results and singing praises.
8. Do Not Forget the Foundation Staff
9. Conduct Regular Reviews of Professional Advisors

The Office of the President and Vice President should give the 5Cs.

1. Commitment
2. Coordination
3. Communication
4. Continuity
5. Completion

Last but not least,  partisan politics serves no purpose. Job Reservations for friends and relatives is self-defeating.  Only uneducated idiots find comfort in such mediocrity.  Mutharika is an educated man. Sagacious. He must rise above common follies. Only then will real investment flow into the country.

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 By Fin24 

Mobile network Vodacom has hiked the pay of its chief executive officer Shameel Joosub by almost double for the financial year ended March 2016 to ZAR22m or MWK1,012,000,000

Vodacom released its 2016 integrated report on Friday which reveals that Joosub’s guaranteed package was increased from R7.2m in 2015 to R7.8m for the financial year ended March 2016.

Moreover, Joosub’s short-term incentive, or bonus pay, was hiked from R3.7m in 2015 to almost R14m for the year ended March 2016.

Excluding long term benefits, Joosub’s total pay for the company’s 2016 financial year was R21.8m, according to the integrated report.

The hike in Joosub’s pay comes amid a solid financial performance from Vodacom.

Earlier this year, the company reported that its total revenue across its African and South African operations increased from R74.5bn to R80bn for the financial year.

The group also reported that its headline earnings per share (HEPS) was up 2.7% to 883 cents per share.

A 2016 remuneration table for Vodacom’s executive directors. 

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Malawi Gold

 By Moffat Damalankhunda  

Malawi has made history and economic progress this week. Law Makers unanimously endorsed a motion to legalize the production of Malawi Gold for export and industrial purposes. This comes amidst tough economic woes exacerbated by poor performance of tobacco on the auction floors. This year rejection rate on Tobacco Auction Floor has  hit 92%. 

Malawi’s Economy relies on Agriculture with Tobacco as the mainstay of the economy together with Tea and Sugar. 

As one of the newest agricultural commodities to hit the market, cannabis is undergoing a rapid expansion. And with more states in US legalizing cannabis for recreational use, it will continue to see exponential growth. 

The disgruntled Law Makers recently went on mild strike. They refused to debate National Budget until their grievances on conditions of service were addressed.  Malawi becomes the first country on the continent to legalize the production of  cannabis. 

Among other medical benefits, Cannabis medically offers the following:

1. It can be used to treat Glaucoma
2. It may help reverse the carcinogenic effects of tobacco and improve lung health
3. It can help control epileptic seizures
4. It also decreases the symptoms of a severe seizure disorder known as Dravet’s Syndrome
5. A chemical found in marijuana stops cancer from spreading
6. It may decrease anxiety
7. THC slows the progression of Alzheimer’s disease
8. The drug eases the pain of Multiple Sclerosis
9. Other types of muscle spasms could be helped too
10. Marijuana treats inflammatory bowel diseases
11. It keeps you skinny and helps your metabolism
12. It improves the symptoms of Lupus, an autoimmune disorder

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 Source: IMF Press Release   

IMF Executive Board Completes Seventh and Eighth Reviews under Malawi’s ECF Arrangement and Approves US$ 76.8 Million Disbursement

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today completed the seventh and eighth reviews of Malawi’s economic performance under the program supported by an Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement[1]. The Board’s decision enables the immediate disbursement of the equivalent of SDR 54.22 million (about US$ 76.8 million), bringing total disbursements under the arrangement to the equivalent of SDR 119.3 million (about US$ 169.1 million).

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