Mike Msungama slapped with court order to pay back Chacha $47 200 with interest, legal costs

High Court commercial division judge Annabel Mtalimanja has ordered Lilongwe-based  businessperson and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) official Mike Msungama  Phiri to pay back in full loan of  $47 200  he took from United States-based Malawian social media ‘flexer’ Chawezi  Sibongile Banda, daughter of Malawi’s former Finance Minister, the late Aleke Kadonaphani  Banda, well known as ‘Chacha’.

Chacha dragged Msungama in court in May 2020, arguing that while the legal contract having specifically agreed repayment terms, Msungama defaulted payment any sum towards settlement of the debt.

Msungama used the money to purchase a vehicle on December 25 2019.

But in court battle, Chacha through her prominent private practice lawyer Mtchuka George Mwale successfully proved their claim before the court which slapped a repayment with 5 percent interest above the commercial bank lending cost, collection costs and cost of action.

Msungama was represented by lawyer Edgar Kachale.

The order by Justice Mtalimanja for Msungama to pay the debt in full comes after another ruling in July in which it was ordered that he pays back the debt but he had filed an application to court to pay in instalments owing to financial and economic conditions by the negative effects of Covid-19.

He had asked the installment of $1 500 monthly on account of the fact that he has subsisting liabilities including school fees for his son at Paramount Primary School at K600 000 per term, monthly water bills of about K55 000 and food and other family expenses at K300 000.

Msungama, according to the court records, produced a bank statement of evidence of his economic situation.

But in cross examination he conceded that the bank statement is not a true reflection of his financial positions, in so far as it does not reflect the income of  about K3 million that he generates from his stone cladding business.

Msungama was deemed to have approached the court with no clean hands on installments plea and he “suppressed a material fact” which he “intended to mislead the court.”

In her ruling, Justice Mtalimanja said Msungama “has failed to satisfy the court that he is genuinely unable to pay judgement debt at once.”

She ruled: “I therefore decline to grant him permission to pay the judgement debt in installments. The application is dismissed with costs to the judgement creditor.”

The judgement was delivered in Justice Mtalimanja’s Chambers on September 15 2020.

Msungama is known as the first person to be convicted in relation to Cashgate, the biggest financial scandal in the country’s history, but appealed on grounds that the Toyota Fortuner on which he was convicted of possession of stolen property found did not belong to him.

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