UTM faces legal battle over K106Million debt

Mangochi based businessman Benson Kambulire has dragged UTM to court demanding money amounting to K106Million for the party failure to pay him motor vehicle service charges.

This follows an agreement made between 2019/ 2020 between Dr. Saulos Chilima and Mr. Benson Kambulire, in which it is alleged that Dr. Chilima contracted Mr. Kambulire as an agent to be marketing UTM in Mangochi.

In the agreement, it was stated that Kambulire was going to provide office premises, repairing Dr. Chilima’s campaign vehicles in Mangochi and purchasing fuel for all vehicles deployed in Mangochi for UTM campaign.

According to the court documents , Dr. Chilima promised to refund all expenditures that Mr. Kambulire could incur plus additional money as a token of appreciation.

This refund, according to the court documents, was to take place after the 2020 election regardless of the outcome of the election.

According to the court documents, Kambulire has specified that he incurred a total of K106 million as costs of repairing the vehicles and purchasing fuel as agreed.

Kambulire, through his lawyers Taulo and Associates, claims in court that after the election in 2020, he sent numerous reminders to Chilima, who then began ignoring him and neglecting to pay his dues. Up to now, he has not been paid.

Kambulire’s lawyers (Taulo & Associates) have since accused Chilima and UTM of failure to reimburse the money, saying that in doing so, they breached their contract with Kambulire.

Apart from the K106 million that Mr. Kambulire allegedly spent, the lawyers have also indicated that they are claiming payment of money for the loss of use of that amount over the period that it has not been paid including economic loss as a result of devaluation apart from claiming other costs.

The case was filed by Kambulire lawyers this week on 3rd November and has included Chilima’s Estate and UTM as defendants.

When a person dies living debt behind, the creditors of that debt can recover from the deceased’s estate (i.e., property that he has left behind).