Cecilia Kadzamira in property wrangle
Former president Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s official hostess Cecelia Tamanda Kadzamira has been entangled in a farm ownership wrangle with former politician the late Kaphwiti Banda’s family, which has challenged her that it owns the estate she runs in Mchinji District.
A representative of the Kaphwiti family, Tapiwa in an interview said her father, who was once a Member of Parliament for Mchinji, bought the farm in 1968 where he constructed staff quarters, a maize meal and a shop among other structures.
However, he lost it when he went into exile in neighbouring Zambia in 1971 after being blacklisted for opposing some of Kamuzu’s policies. His other properties such as commercial plots where he constructed shop buildings in Mchinji and a cottage in Salima were also seized, according to Tapiwa.
She explained that after the country was embracing democracy in 1993, her father returned, but was only able to recover the commercial plots that had been occupied.
“A well-wisher safely kept documents which had title deeds for the plots and handed them over when he came back. With the help of the courts, he repossessed the plots.
“Despite that recovery my father’s biggest dream was to repossess the farm, but unfortunately, he did not have title deeds until when he died it 2012,” Tapiwa told Nation on Sunday.
She said the family discovered the farm’s title deed at the Ministry of Lands in 2013. Kaphwiti had named the estate Tichitenji, but Kadzamira, renamed in Chalimbana.
“We wanted to get a bank loan using the commercial plots as collateral. We were advised to change the ownership from dad’s name and also go to the Ministry of Lands for valuation of the plots.
“There, the valuators asked us if the collateral would extend to the farm and we said we don’t have deeds. This is when they gave us the deed. They explained . that it was among documents Barclays Bank surrendered to the ministry when it was closing down business in the country
“It happened that our father was banking with Barclays, so there was some transaction he did which required he submits the deeds,” she said.
Tapiwa said over the past three years the family has been trying to engage Kadzamira into dialogue to find a solution, but she has been elusive.
“We wrote her a letter of claim and she responded through her lawyer Titus Mvalo that the farm is hers as it was given to her by Kamuzu as a gift,” she said.
Last year, the Kaphwiti Banda family went to settle on the farm as it intensified its push to recover it following Kadzamira’s snub before the Kamuzu confidant obtained an injunction restraining its move, Tapiwa said.
The two sides are now expected to battle in court.
Kamuzu’s rule started in 1964 ended in 1994 when he was defeated by Bakili Muluzi in the country’s first multi-party election.
The reign of the former dictator, who died in 1997, saw hundreds of Malawians fleeing into exile; politicians being arrested or killed and complete clampdown of human rights and press freedom.
