Hotel deal in new snag

After lifting the initial restriction order upon finding no substantive evidence of corruption in how the Public Service Pension Trust Fund (PSPTF) agreed to buy Amaryllis Hotel at K128.7 billion, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) yesterday said it will issue another freeze order on the deal. ACB acting director general Gabriel Chembezi said yesterday that the fresh order will stop PSPTF from paying the balance in the K128.7 billion Amaryllis Hotel transaction. It was not immediately clear how much has been paid so far.

Responding to questions during a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament inquiry on the transaction in Lilongwe yesterday, he said the restriction notice will be issued within two days. “We are going to immediately issue another restriction notice to prevent payment of the balance until the matter is conclusively investigated and we are going to come back within two days with the timelines,” Chembezi told the lawmakers. Committee chairperson Steven Malondera had asked Chembezi to provide timelines and concrete results rather than open-ended inquiries beyond what he described as “talk shows”.

“We’re not asking ACB to vent anger on innocent Malawians, but to do the job based on evidence. We don’t want this investigation to be one of those talk shows,” said Malondera. During the session, Chembezi justified the bureau’s December 2025 clearance of the deal and said the identified investment’s risks were referred to Attorney General Frank Mbeta after closing its file.

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Mbeta has since denied authorising the purchase, stating that his office only provides legal advice to entities. Chembezi said the ACB lifted a previous restriction notice in January this year because it could not be sustained once investigations concluded, clarifying that this did not amount to approving the deal. Earlier yesterday, Nico Asset Managers Limited chief executive officer Daniel Dunga said the firm withdrew from the deal in December 2023 after internal reviews showed the proposal lacked adequate technical assessment for a significant pension fund investment.

“We manage people’s money. When we talk about K5 trillion worth of assets under management, it is not our money. It is the money that belongs to the people.

And it is their interest only that we protect jealously,” he said. Dunga told the committee that Nico Asset Managers refunded about K85 million to the pension fund after pulling out, covering fees for service providers engaged during due diligence. He said his company’s involvement began on May 2 2023 after being approached by an investment adviser representing the owners of Amaryllis Hotel, Yusuf Investments Limited. Dunga said Nico Asset Managers recommended two property valuations from property valuation and managements firms Knight Frank and Garden City as well as business valuation from FDH Bank plc which placed the hotel’s value at around K30 billion.

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