TA Bvumbwe dies at age 35

Traditional Authority T/A Bvumbwe of Malawi’s southern district of Thyolo has died, Ministry of Local government has confirmed.

The youthful chief died on Wednesday at Adventist hospital in Blantyre at the age of 36. He was born in 1980.

TA Bvumbwe was installed in October 2001 by the then president Bakili Muluzi.

In 2013, he courted controversy when he annoyed the then president Joyce Banda for the remarks he made at Judge Joseph Manyungwa’s funeral in Thyolo.

T/A Bvumbwe rebuked Banda’s People’s Party (PP) officials for distributing party T-shirts at the funeral of Judge Manyungwa.

“[Madam President] I want to say what has happened here. Your boys were distributing T-shirts. This is bad and degrading. It should never happen again. This should never happen again, if you want, hold a rally and distribute the T-shirts there,” he reportedly said.

As T/A Bvumbwe made his speech, PP regional director of youth (South) Lemani Chapitapansi, who was involved in the distribution of the T-shirts even to the local grave diggers, cast his face down.

Later, officials led by Brown Mpinganjira approached Thyolo District Commissioner, Lawford Palani and asked him to organize chiefs in the district to apologise to Banda over the remarks by TA Bvumbwe .

Thyolo District Commissioner was also instructed to sideline T/A Bvumbwe in any government functions.

He is survived by a wife and two daughters Monica and Desire.