The Judiciary is at the centre of another case of filling station grabbing after a High Court judgment allowed one Jimmy Mbuliro to take over and sell a filling station because the owner of the filling station allegedly owed Mbuliro money amounting to K7 million.
This is according to an audio circulating on social media made by a man identified as Paul Nthambazare Nyirenda.
According to Paul, his brother Prince Nthambazare Nyirenda owned a filling station at Luwinga in Mzuzu and Total Malawi was the tenant operating the filling station.
Prince, in 2019, secured a loan from Jimmy Mbuliro and the two agreed that Prince would pay K52 million in return. They also agreed that Prince’s house in Mzuzu would be used as a security for the loan.
As Prince was failing to repay the loan, the amount kept being increased and when the figure reached K100 million, Prince agreed to sell the house to Mbuliro at the same amount.
At this time, Prince was ill and wanted to seek medical attention outside Malawi. Once again, he approached Mbuliro for a loan and this time it was K6 million with an agreement that Prince would repay K7 million. Prince left Mbuliro with documents for the filling station.
However, while Prince was still outside Malawi, Mbuliro informed Prince’s family that they should repay the money or he would sell the filling station as a buyer was already available.
Mbuliro later went to the High Court Commercial Division where he submitted that Prince owed him K107 million. Since Prince was still outside Malawi, he did not enter defence and Judge Ntalimanja in 2020 delivered a default judgement.
This paved the way for Mbuliro through Trust Auctioneers to sell the filling station to Realism owned by Bishop Simama.
The Nyirenda family in April, 2021 went to the same court and managed to obtain a stay order against the earlier judgment.
However, Simama also managed to get an injunction from Judge Ken Manda restraining any member of the Nyirenda family from operating the filling station.
After the Nyirenda family approached him, Manda said he would set a date for inter-parte hearing of the case.
“However, Manda is yet to set a date for the inter-parte hearing and we have been told that we can only appeal the case at the Supreme Court after the issue of the injunction is resolved in the lower court.
“Simama bulldozed the judicial system to buy the filling station and his company is still operating it,” said Paul Nyirenda.
He also expressed concern that even though the filling station was sold at about K400 million because of a loan of the alleged K107 million, the rest of the money was not given to Prince Nyirenda and was allegedly given to Mbuliro’s lawyer.
“I am asking Members of Parliament to look into malpractices of Judges. Lawyers connive with certain Judges to get their way. There is now way that the family of my brother should be suffering because some people monopolise justice,” said Nyirenda, who added that his brother is still outside Malawi and is incommunicado while his children are struggling.
The revelations have come after Simama also bought a filling station in Lilongwe earlier this week after Judge Manda ruled in favour of businessperson Alfred Gangata who claimed that owner of Gam Filling Station confiscated keys of his borehole drilling truck leading to a loss of K747 million. The confiscation of the keys happened after Gangata failed to pay K1.5 million to Gam Filling Station where he bought fuel on credit.
The Judicial Service Commission and the Chief Justice are yet to comment on the allegations made against Judges.
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