Malawi’s questionable hotel deal lingers
When Arthur Peter Mutharika returned to Malawi’s presidency in October 2025, he cast his administration as a turning point in the country’s long struggle with corruption.
Addressing supporters at Kamuzu Stadium in the capital city, Lilongwe, he warned public officials that the era of looting public resources was over. Anyone abusing state power for personal gain, he said, would face consequences.
Within months, however, one of the largest investment decisions involving public funds in recent years began to test that pledge.
Parliamentary testimony, financial regulatory disclosures and reporting by local media suggest that as a controversial 128.7 billion kwacha acquisition of the Amaryllis Hotel in Blantyre unfolded, institutions responsible for enforcing Malawi’s financial-crime laws faced internal pressure, scrutiny and leadership changes.
The sequence of events has raised concern among some lawmakers, lawyers and regulators that Malawi’s anti-corruption enforcement system may be under strain at a moment when it faces one of its most significant tests.
The controversy centres on the February 2026 purchase of the Amaryllis Hotel by the Public Service Pension Trust Fund (PSPTF), which manages retirement savings for Malawi’s civil servants.
According to parliamentary records and public statements by the fund, PSPTF completed the acquisition from Yusuf Investment Limited after receiving legal clearance from Attorney General Frank Mbeta.
Valued at 128.7 billion kwacha, the deal ranks among the largest single investments ever made using the pension contributions of Malawi’s public-sector workers.
Questions about the transaction emerged months before the purchase was finalised.
In November 2025, the Malawi Law Society formally petitioned the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to halt the deal.
In a letter later referenced during parliamentary proceedings, the lawyers’ body cited potential conflicts of interest, concerns about the adequacy of due diligence and the reversal of an earlier PSPTF decision not to proceed with the acquisition.
Property records reviewed by journalists and referenced in local media reports indicated that the hotel property carried multiple bank charges. These included loans associated with National Bank of Malawi and CDH Investment Bank.
The presence of these liabilities prompted questions about the property’s valuation and whether financial risks tied to the asset were being transferred to the pension fund.
Despite these concerns, the transaction proceeded.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau later told lawmakers that it had examined the deal but did not find sufficient evidence to bring corruption charges.
Appearing before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee in March 2026, acting ACB director general Gabriel Chembezi said investigators had identified what he described as “multiple red flags” related to governance and investment decision-making.
However, Chembezi said the bureau concluded that the available evidence did not meet the legal threshold required to establish corruption under Malawi’s laws.
He also told lawmakers that the investigation had faced practical constraints. According to his testimony, the original complainant did not come forward to provide further evidence and the Malawi Law Society declined to submit additional documentation to support its allegations.
Even so, the bureau’s handling of the matter drew scrutiny after local media reports indicated that Chembezi had attended a meeting on November 17 at which officials discussed the proposed hotel acquisition.
The reports, later referenced in parliamentary debate, prompted questions from critics about whether the bureau’s leadership had participated in discussions related to a transaction that it would later assess as investigators.
The ACB has not publicly indicated that Chembezi’s presence at the meeting compromised the bureau’s investigation.
While the anti-corruption bureau concluded that the deal did not constitute a prosecutable corruption case, financial regulators provided lawmakers with a different picture of the transactions surrounding it.
During the same parliamentary hearings, the Reserve Bank of Malawi disclosed that investigators had traced 72.6 billion kwacha linked to financial flows associated with the Amaryllis deal.
According to testimony delivered to the Public Accounts Committee by Reserve Bank representative Kaluso Chihana, appearing on behalf of the Registrar of Financial Institutions, regulators had already frozen or secured significant portions of those funds.
Media summaries of the hearing characterised the regulator’s findings as evidence of a breakdown in compliance with financial directives within the banking system.
According to accounts of the testimony published by local outlets and discussed in Parliament, central bank officials indicated that regulatory instructions may have been ignored as large sums connected to the deal moved through financial institutions.
A 294-page report by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, adopted on 31 March 2026 following weeks of public hearings but leaked to the media on April 8, 2026, reconstructs how the governance of the Public Service Pension Trust Fund was altered after the board rejected the acquisition of the Amaryllis Hotel in January 2024.”
For the thousands of civil servants whose retirement savings are managed by the Public Service Pension Trust Fund, the transaction carries significant implications.
The Amaryllis acquisition effectively converts a large portion of those savings into a single commercial real estate investment.
In Malawi’s fragile economic environment, critics say such concentration may expose contributors to substantial risk. The country continues to face persistent foreign-exchange shortages, climate-related economic shocks and weak levels of private investment.
If the investment performs poorly, the financial consequences could ultimately fall on pension contributors or, in a worst-case scenario, require government intervention to stabilise the fund.
The Amaryllis controversy has unfolded alongside reported changes within institutions responsible for investigating financial crime.
Local media reports and widely circulated social media posts indicate that several senior figures associated with financial-crime enforcement, including officials linked to the
Financial Intelligence Authority and the Anti-Corruption Bureau, were removed from their positions or reassigned during the early month of April 2026.
Official government notices concerning these changes remain fragmented across departmental statements and the full timelines and legal justifications for the personnel moves could not be independently verified at the time of writing.
Nevertheless, the developments have drawn attention from legal analysts and civil society organisations, which argue that institutional stability is essential if anti-corruption agencies are to conduct politically sensitive investigations effectively.
Malawi’s modern financial-crime enforcement system emerged largely in response to the 2013 “Cashgate” corruption scandal, in which an estimated 25 million dollars was siphoned from government accounts through fraudulent payments.
In the years that followed, authorities strengthened anti-money laundering legislation and expanded the powers of investigative agencies.
The Financial Crimes (Amendment) Act of 2025 further broadened those powers. The law formally designated the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Financial Intelligence Authority, the Malawi Revenue Authority and the Reserve Bank of Malawi as “competent authorities” empowered to coordinate investigations, share intelligence and pursue asset recovery.
On paper, the framework reflects international standards promoted by the Financial Action Task Force.
The Amaryllis case is now testing whether those powers can be exercised independently when politically sensitive financial decisions are involved. The stakes extend beyond Malawi’s domestic politics.
Malawi’s banking sector relies heavily on relationships with international correspondent banks, which require confidence that local regulators can detect and investigate suspicious financial transactions.
Past corruption scandals have strained those relationships. Following the Cashgate revelations, several international donors temporarily suspended direct budget support to the Malawian government.
Governance failures tied to large financial transactions could renew concerns among foreign governments, lenders and development partners.
For President Mutharika, the Amaryllis deal represents an early test of the anti-corruption commitment that defined his return to office.
Malawi now has expanded financial-crime legislation, multiple investigative agencies and formal mechanisms for regulatory coordination.
But testimony emerging from parliamentary hearings suggests a more complex picture.
Different watchdog institutions have reached sharply different conclusions about the severity of financial irregularities connected to the deal, and enforcement agencies have faced scrutiny as the investigation unfolded.
‘The Public Accounts Committee’s report has recommended the dissolution of the current board, investigations into possible abuse of office by former secretary to the president and cabinet Colleen Zamba, the suspension of the acting director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau and criminal proceedings where evidence supports them.’
Zamba, who is facing criminal charges in Case No. 266 of 2026, did not appear before the committee during its hearings.
In its final assessment, the committee framed the case as a test of institutional accountability.
“This report is not merely an account of a flawed transaction,” the committee wrote.
“It is a reaffirmation of the principle that public resources, particularly those held in trust for the future security of citizens, must be managed with the highest standards of integrity.”
Collins Mtika is a veteran journalist and the Mail & Guardian’s special correspondent in Mzuzu, Malawi.
This article was made possible by a partnership with the Centre for Investigative Journalism Malawi (CIJM)