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| National |
| Association divided over Chief M’mbelwa’s debt |
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by
Bright Sonani, 31 December 2004
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12:00:42
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Members of the Mzimba Heritage Association have not yet agreed on the idea of bailing out their Inkosi Ya Makosi Mbelwa IV who is facing sheriff’s execution order after failing to settle a debt of K2.2 million ($20,370).
Some of the members have risen against the association asking for justification as to why the chief has to be assisted.
Mzimba Heritage Association Secretary General Ndabazake Thole in an interview on Thursday disclosed that the idea to raise funds for the chief has never been discussed and he was surprised that someone announced through the radio and newspapers that the association has agreed on the matter.
“The question which people are asking and I would want to ask them is: if we assist the Inkosi Ya Makosi, how many debts would the son and daughters of Mzimba pay at the end of the day,” said Thole.
He said it was not wrong for individuals from Mzimba to sympathise with the paramount chief and assist him in his predicament but it would be wrong to involve the association.
Thole said the idea of Mzimba Heritage Association was hatched when they were discussing the issue of Mzimba’s centenary celebrations commemorating the signing of a treaty with the British as part of Nyasaland in 1904.
“We said to do this we need money and we decided to set up a trust for that purpose not to raise funds to specifically assist the Inkosi Ya Makosi. Whatever happened to the Inkosi Ya Makosi, just like what would happen to the other Inkosanas from the district, would be of a concern to the association but we, as an association cannot commit ourselves to assisting him,” said Thole.
The Mzimba Heritage Association is said to have met recently to discuss the issue of assisting the Ngoni paramount chief and chairman of the association’s development committee and its spokesman Felix Jere told MBC Radio on Wednesday that the association had agreed to bail out Mmbelwa.
Jere in a separate interview on Thursday said although the account was not set up to specifically assist the chief, the association feels that it is within its mandate to sort him out of the predicament.
He said one of associations’s objectives in its constitution was that it would conserve the dignity of the Amakhosi and promote their welfare.
“We felt assisting him is relevant to that, the only problem, it seems, is that there is lack of appreciation of what happened to the chief among some people. Unfortunately the chief is a very important citizen in the district and could not be brought to clarify what happened to him and at the same time he was dealing with other very important citizens in the country,” said Jere.
Jere said so far the association has raised K80,000 out of the required K2.2 million.
Sheriff’s seized household property for the Ngoni chief at his Edingeni headquarters in the district after he failed to repay the K2.2 million to Finance Bank.
M’mbelwa is on record to have blamed former president Bakili Muluzi for his predicament.
The Mzuzu High Court recently rescued the chief’s property from being put on auction after an agreement that he would pay in instalments.
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