* As civil servants, as the strongest stakeholders in the Fund, threaten to hold vigils at offices and homes of the PSPTF Board of Trustees
By Duncan Mlanjira
Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) granted Yusuf Investments Ltd duty waivers on some of the imported construction materials for Amaryliss Hotel in 2016, indicates a document, MRA/CE/TECH/CPC 445, that is circulating on social media.
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It was issued by Commissioner-Customs and Excise, Fatch Valeta on October 31 2016 having being approved by the Commissioner General, under Treasury authority reference number C/ROD/6/3/3/12 of 28th August 2015.
The duty waiver was for capital goods (6×20 containers of Gypsum Ceiling boards & PVC suspended ceilings), which Yusuf Investments Ltd applied for on October 14, 2016.
When negotiating the price with Public Service Pension Trust Fund (PSPTF), Yusuf-Investments-Ltd-first-demanded-k185-billion-as-sale-offer and the seller is on record to have justified such a whopping offer, having taken into account “the durability of the construction materials, and the equipment fitted in the hotel, much of which were purchased outside the country”.
They maintained that the materials were of the highest quality, hence the ability of the hotel to maintain the 5-Star hotel rating after being reviewed successfully throughout the years it has been in existence.
Meanwhile, as the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) continues to meet stakeholders who were involved in the inquiry into the purchase deal, concerned civil servants on the contributory pension scheme, have petitioned the PSPTF demanding that the Board of Trustees “must be disssolved with immediate effect and offices be sealed” — and that the funds that were paid for the sale be paid back within 5 days from March 15, 2026 when the petition was issued.
“Failure to pay back [the money] will lead to country-wide stay away from our duty stations,” says the petition, also demanding that all individuals who benefited from — what they describe as “maladministration” — should be publicly “named, arrested and answer charges while in custody. There is no need for them to be out here making efforts to conceal evidence.”
This petition follows a call by the -Malawi-Law-Society-when-it-presented-its-report-to-PAC-over-the-controversial-PSPTF’s-acquisition-of-amaryllis-hotel/ in which the MLS asked members of the Fund to demand accountability and transparency from the Fund’s trustees and officers regarding the transaction.
Thus the petitioners observe that the PSPTF Board has failed to manage the pension funds, and quotes records which show that “civil servants under the contributory pension scheme, who have served for 10 solid years, are to go away with only K4 million or less when they retire, due to non-remittance of the pension percentages by government since 2023”.
“We know this is due to your negligence in your fiduciary duty to push for the same. Instead of bringing the government to task, you are busy mismanaging the money entrusted to you.
“If things continue the way they are, we need to look at the possibility of going back to the old system or reshaping this very failed system,” say that the petitioners, who further indicate that they shall hold a press briefing this week and to hold vigil at both the Board members’ offices and homes until they resign from their positions and hand themselves to the police.
“We can no longer continue sinking as civil servants, and sinking as a nation due to lack of patriotism,” says the petition, which indicates that the civil servants, as the strongest stakeholders in the Fund, were not “were not even informed about the purchase beforehand to appreciate the situation before a decision was reached”.
They also blame their trade unions, “who seem to have taken part” in the deal and this leads to them “to conclude that trade unions are no longer ready to stand up for their members, and that most of them are there to enrich themselves”.
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