‘They should vomit this money’: Chithyola demands justice over Amaryllis Hotel scandal
Malawi’s opposition leader has issued a furious demand for accountability over the stalled Amaryllis Hotel scandal, declaring that the country risks “slowly embracing corruption as policy” unless answers are finally delivered over the controversial K128 billion pension fund purchase.
Simplex Chithyola Banda used his closing remarks to parliament to reignite pressure on government over the deal, in which the Public Service Pension Trust Fund (PSPTF) bought Blantyre’s Amaryllis Hotel even after the Reserve Bank had reportedly ordered the transaction to be halted.
“Months have gone by now without much progress on the Hotel Saga,” he told the House. “The silence on the Amaryllis Hotel matter is an indication that as a society we are slowly embracing corruption as policy.”
The opposition leader stressed that the scandal was not merely a matter of high finance, but one that struck directly at the retirement savings of Malawi’s ordinary public servants.
“The issue surrounding the Amaryllis Hotel concerns the hardworking public servants’ savings,” he said. “It concerns money set aside by faithful yet ordinary civil servants for their old age. When the institutions meant to protect that money instead expose it to a deal priced nearly three times its worth, this shows that corruption is embraced and has become a welcome policy.”
In an emotional appeal, Chithyola Banda invoked religious language in calling for the money to be returned to the fund.
“It is the prayer of every Malawian that those who partook on this money should vomit this money,” he said. “Ndalama izizi azisanze mdzina la Yesu and Allah.”
The intervention comes just days after parliament closed its current sitting without ever receiving a long-awaited report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) into the transaction – despite the committee having been explicitly cleared by the Speaker to conclude its inquiry without hearing testimony from former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba, whose repeated no-shows had stalled proceedings for months.
Chithyola Banda demanded that government “break the silence” on the matter, calling for full findings to be published and for the Anti-Corruption Bureau to be allowed to investigate “without interference.”
He linked the scandal to a broader pattern of secrecy he said was undermining public trust in government, warning that transparency could not be applied selectively.
“A government that publishes what it spends, what it sells, and what it signs has nothing to fear from an opposition, or from its own citizens,” he said. “A government that hides these things has already told Malawians what to think.”
