OPINION | Bendulo’s Anti-Zamba Campaign: Political Theater Without Facts

Anthony Bendulo’s latest attack against Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) Colleen Zamba is more smoke and mirrors than substance. His dramatic Facebook post accusing Zamba of corruption in the Area 55 Industrial Park deal is a classic case of political theatre driven by bitterness — not facts.

This isn’t Bendulo’s first brush with the spotlight. He first gained prominence in 2019 as a witness in the historic presidential election case that helped usher Lazarus Chakwera into State House. In 2020, he landed a government job as Director of Innovations in the Office of the President and Cabinet — a high-profile post he quit three years later citing “peanuts pay,” a complaint as old as the civil service itself. Clearly, whatever frustrations he left with have festered into a personal grudge.

That grudge now shapes every attack he levels at SPC Zamba. Two days ago, Bendulo posted a letter purportedly from Zamba to the Malawi Investment and Trade Centre. He painted it as a secret “K130 billion land giveaway” to foreign investors in the Area 55 Industrial Park — a government-foreign investor joint venture trading as Arise IIP.

But his accusations collapse under scrutiny.

Zamba’s letter clearly states the land transfer will be “at no cost as it forms part of the Government’s contribution to the project.” Bendulo treats this as a smoking gun, but it’s actually textbook public-private partnership practice. The Attorney General’s advisory confirms this by outlining a shareholding structure where “we could start from 20% to be land value and the remainder cash injection,” leaving room for stakeholder negotiation.

This means the land is not a free gift but a form of capital contribution — an investment representing Malawi’s equity stake in the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) jointly owned with Arise IIP.

Importantly, Zamba instructed that the land title be issued to the Government of Malawi first, before transfer to the SPV — hardly a secret giveaway directly to investors as Bendulo suggests.

Yet Bendulo’s post conspicuously omits these critical details. He ignores the AG’s advisory, the shareholding structure, and the fact that land-for-equity arrangements are standard in partnerships like this.

What’s left is sensationalism masquerading as a corruption exposé — a selective, misleading narrative designed to provoke outrage rather than illuminate facts.

In truth, Bendulo’s attack reeks of a bitter vendetta rather than objective political critique.

When personal frustration fuels political accusations, the truth invariably becomes the first casualty.

Anthony Bendulo’s reckless smear campaign against SPC Colleen Zamba is not about accountability — it’s about settling old scores.

 

 

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