FDH Bank Chief Executive Officer, Thom Mpinganjira, and Head of Credit, Tiwonge Khonje, risk arrests for contempt of court in a long-drawn case between the Bank and Maranatha Girls Academy.<\/p>\n
According to court documents that we have seen, the High Court on March 7, 2017, issued an order for leave to move for an order for committal for contempt of court to Mpinganjira and Khonje, under Civil Cause number 681 of 2013.<\/p>\n
The court further said the concerned parties should attend hearing of the case on April 7, 2017.<\/p>\n
The documents indicate that Mpinganjira and Khonje disobeyed two court orders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two are holding this court in contempt by blatantly and contemptuously disobeying an order given by this court on September 27, 2013 and January 6, 2014, wherein an injunction was granted restraining the Respondent [FDH Bank] either by itself, its servants or agents from realising security in title number South Lunzu 7\/45 in the city of Blantyre until the determination of this matter or a further order of the court,\u201d reads part of the notice.<\/p>\n
Lawyer representing Maranatha, Cassius Chidothe, confirmed delivery of the notice saying that Mpinganjira refused to receive it.<\/p>\n
He, however, said even though Mpinganjira refused to receive the notice, the court records still show that he was served with it and he is expected to appear before the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether he signs or not that he has received the notice, the court will still treat that he is aware of the matter as the documents already indicate that he [Mpinganjira] has been served with the notice,\u201d Chidothe said.<\/p>\n
Judiciary Spokesperson, Mlenga Mvula, confirmed the issuance of the notice and that hearing is scheduled for next month.<\/p>\n
Responding to our questionnaire, Mpinganjira referred the issue to the company\u2019s Head of Marketing, Sobhuza Ngwenya.<\/p>\n
However, Ngwenya\u2019s phone kept going to voice mail.<\/p>\n
The court battle between the two entities dates back to 2013, when the bank advertised for sale of the school for its failure to settle a loan that Maranatha got from the bank but in turn the school sued FDH Bank for loss of business.<\/p>\n
At first Maranatha Girls Academy Limited was awarded about K785 million but in his ruling in April last year, Judge Kenyatta Nyirenda slashed the figure to K392 million.<\/p>\n
Nyirenda ordered FDH Bank to pay Maranatha Girls Academy K392 million for the bank\u2019s failure to give the school three months statutory notice when it advertised in newspapers on July 25, 2012 that it would sell Maranatha Girls Academy Limited.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe amount has been trimmed to about K392 million and the court has further explained that 50 percent of this amount should be paid outright as FDH prepares for appeal or any other subsequent action,\u201d Judiciary Spokesperson Mlenga Mvula said.<\/p>\n
Within the month of April, sheriffs pounced on FDH Bank Umoyo House Branch and confiscated computers and a printer, forcing the bank to close for some hours but FDH Bank obtained a stay order stopping any seizure of its property.<\/p>\n
However, last month, FDH sent its officers to Maranatha to assess the premises again with an intention of selling it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FDH Bank Chief Executive Officer, Thom Mpinganjira, and Head of Credit, Tiwonge Khonje, risk arrests for contempt of court in a long-drawn case between the Bank and Maranatha Girls Academy. According to court documents that we have seen, the High Court on March 7, 2017, issued an order for leave to move for an order […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42240,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42237\/revisions\/42240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}