One of the country’s leading car importing companies Yewo Car Importers on July 1, 2023 officially opened a new office in Lilongwe.
The office is situated at Century city building mall after Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) roundabout.
Speaking with journalists, Yewo Car Importers founder Lonely Paul Mwandira said the new office will help Lilongwe city and other surrounding areas residents to import cars with Yewo company easily.
“We have opened this new office so as to help those who want to import cars with us here in Lilongwe to do so easily.
“The opening of this office means that now, we have two main offices, that is in Mzuzu and here in Lilongwe,” he said.
Mwandira said, currently, plans are already in the pipeline for the company to open more offices across the country.
According to Mwandira, at Yewo Car Importers they have special schemes which customers need to engage when they want to buy cars from them such as normal scheme, loan scheme and Yewo vehicle Sacco.
“At Yewo Car Importers, we have special schemes that our customers need to engage if they want to buy cars with us such as normal scheme where a customer tell us a type of a vehicle he or she want so we buy for the customer from Japan and we give him or her quotation which he or she can pay in Kwacha,” said Mwandila.
On her part, one of customers Cynthia Kaipa described the company as one of the best and trusted car importing companies in Malawi.
“I am very proud to see that today Yewo is opening another new office here in Lilongwe. I have been purchasing my cars from Yewo and it is one of the best car selling companies everyone can trust here in Malawi, said Kaipa.
In his remarks, His Worship, the Mayor of Lilongwe City Richard Banda also hailed Yewo Car Importers company for opening the office in Lilongwe saying this will ease challenges that car buyers in the city face.
During the event, the company also handed over cars to its valued customers who have been purchasing cars from it.
Lilongwe Magistrate court through Chief resident Magistrate Madalitso Chimwaza has on Monday released on bail former chairperson for Salima Sugar Company, Sherieesh Betgri, who is accused of tax evasion and money laundering.
Among other conditions, the court ordered Betgri to pay a K100 million bond and surrender his 51 percent stake in Salima sugar along with his travel documents.
The court also ordered that the accused should have two sureties where he should pay K50 million each and deposit half of the money to the court.
Betgri now on bail
However, Betgri, pleaded not guilty to charges the state has levelled against him .
Betgiri is being accused of unlawfully obtaining a USD 300 million (about 300 billion kwacha) loan from Dubai in the name of Salima Sugar Company.
The Government of Malawi has 40 percent shareholding in the company through the Green Belt Initiative Holdings Limited.
Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) on Monday made a clarification on the newly gazetted specific taxes that have been put on motor vehicles.
Addressing journalists in Blantyre, MRA Deputy Commissioner of Custom and Excise Chimwemwe Kawalewale explained that these specific taxes are among other important things aimed at addressing valuation disputes and restrict importation of older second hand vehicles.
Chimwemwe Kawalewale
Kawalewale said, for instance, in the 2022/23 financial year alone, 290 valuation appeals were refered to MRA headquarters and out of this, 254 were on used motor vehicles with 245 cases from Songwe Border Post alone, something which is not good.
According to Kawalewale, MRA sat down and came up with new tax figures.
“We sat on huge volumes of data and analysts looked at those figures to come up with the values,” said Kawalewale.
He added that the new tax regime will benefit importers because they will now know duty in advance and this will iron out loopholes where people could undervalue the car to pay less duty.
“Consumers will know the actual value of the duty to be paid and it will benefit more the importers because they will have power, everything has been put in the open and the know the amount of taxes to pay,” he said.
Statistics also show that motor vehicles are among the top three imports which are draining the country’s foreign exchange.
The Customs and Excise Tariffs Amendment Number 4 Order 2023 which has introduced fixed duty on imported vehicles, was signed by Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Sosten Gwengwe and comes into operation on July 15 2023.
The former ruling Democratic Progressive Part (DPP) National Governing Council (NGC) has endorsed Former Malawi leader Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika as the party’s torch bearer for 2025 Presidential elections.
The party announced endorsing Mutharika, 83,during an NGC meeting held on Monday in Mangochi.
Among other reasons the NGC members said Mutharika who ruled Malawi between 2014 and 2020,should return to the presidency because he can provide solutions to the challenges which Malawians are facing.
But speaking to the media after the meeting, Mutharika said he will think about the proposal and inform the nation at his opportune time about his decision.
“I am very humbled to be endorsed for 2025 Presidential elections candidate but I will make a decision on that,” said Mutharika.
During the meeting, the party also announced that it has moved its elective conference from July this year to July next year.
According to Mutharika, the change in dates has been made to allow the party to adopt constitutional changes that have been made during the NGC meeting .
He added that the Party will in December this year hold a high level political conference to review and adopt the constitutional changes that have been made regarding the number of delegates to the convention.
After losing 2020 Fresh Presidential elections, the DPP sanctioned a functional review committee to do a postmortem on why the party lost elections and conduct a review of the party.
The Monday NGC meeting was held after a court injunction banning the meeting was stayed.
DPP presidential aspirants such as Dalitso Kabambe, Leader of opposition in Parliament Kondwani Nankhumwa and Bright Msaka attended the meeting.
