LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The testimony of former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba, who served during the Malawi Congress Party MCP and Tonse Alliance Government from 2020 to 2025, before the Plane Crash Probe has placed the Office of the President and Cabinet at the centre of questions about communication, protocol, and political sensitivity in the hours after Vice President Saulos Chilima’s fatal flight.
Her statements, delivered in both Chichewa and English and captured across multiple exchanges, reveal a state apparatus that was scrambling for clarity while trying to manage competing narratives around the Vice President’s movements.
One of the most contested points was the timeline of when former President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera was informed that Chilima’s plane had not landed.
Former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba, during the Malawi Congress Party MCP and Tonse Alliance Government from 2020 to 2025, insisted that Chakwera was not told immediately, saying she only met him in the morning and that he may not have known Chilima had returned to the country.
She explained that her reference to “VP” in a message was misunderstood by Chakwera as Harry Mkandawire, the Minister of Defence, rather than the Vice President himself.
That confusion, she said, led Chakwera to call Mkandawire to represent him at Ralph Kasambara’s funeral, creating what former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba described as a small confusion for which she took responsibility.
The probe also pressed former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba on her 10:41 a.m. attempt to reach Lucky Sikwese, the Vice President’s Principal Secretary, and whether it was to report the failed landing.
She said her purpose was to confirm whether the Vice President had departed so she could brief the President with something concrete.
When asked about the phrase “oh sorry” sent to Sikwese around noon, former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba, who served during the Malawi Congress Party MCP and Tonse Alliance Government from 2020 to 2025, said it was colloquial language used to signal that the plane had not moved according to plan, not a direct admission of a crash.
She told Walter Nyamilandu that in Malawi’s aviation and official circles, “sorry” was used when a flight failed to reach its destination, in this case Nkhata Bay, and that it did not automatically imply disaster.
Yet the inquiry highlighted the dissonance between that casual phrasing and the gravity of a Vice President’s aircraft missing from radar.
Former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba admitted she heard a report that the plane had turned back from Mzuzu, but could not recall who told her or where she picked it up.
She said she spoke to Mzuzu Airport officials who told her the aircraft was not visible on radar but might be returning to Lilongwe because it had not reached its destination.
On the question of why she did not immediately call the Inspector General of Police after hearing the plane had returned, former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba said she was trying to reach the Principal Secretary in the second Vice President’s office.
She also argued that a plane returning was not unusual, citing her own experience of turning back from Blantyre and two failed trips to Dwangwa with Chakwera.
The press statement issued by her office announcing that the plane was “missing” rather than “turned back” was defended as consistent with the aviation branch’s inability to locate the aircraft at the time.
She said paragraph two of that statement explained why Chakwera cancelled a trip to the Bahamas, because the aviation team could not find the plane.
Beyond the crash itself, former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba’s testimony touched on the posthumous treatment of Chilima’s family.
She said the government continued to extend care to the Chilima family, and that Mary Chilima still receives benefits from the office.
She recalled that Mary Chilima requested to buy a vehicle after the crash, and the President’s office and the Cabinet approved it, though a second vehicle request was denied.
On protocol around the Kasambara funeral, former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba said Chilima attended alone, while Richard Chimwendo Banda was designated to represent Chakwera.
She stressed that the Office of the President did not take part in organizing Chilima’s trip to Mzuzu, and that flight arrangements were handled solely by the Vice President’s office through Sikwese.
Former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba also pushed back on claims that Chakwera delayed going to the mortuary where Chilima’s body lay, saying the family had asked that he not arrive immediately and wanted to view the body first.
Her account of June 9, the Sunday before the crash, placed her at church and then at her village, before she saw on social media that Chilima would attend Kasambara’s funeral.
She said she followed the matter closely because the office did not want the Vice President to be treated as a guest of honour instead of a minister, given his position.
She recalled calling Sikwese in the evening to confirm Chilima’s travel and then calling Chimwendo Banda to coordinate support, but was told by Sikwese that there was no space on the plane.
Chimwendo Banda then made road arrangements to leave early in the morning, underscoring how last-minute the logistics were.
Throughout, former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba, during the Malawi Congress Party MCP and Tonse Alliance Government from 2020 to 2025, repeatedly noted that her phone was with police, making it difficult to verify exact times and messages.
She estimated that her meeting with Chakwera, the Inspector General, and the Malawi Defence Force Commander happened around 3:00 p.m., by which time a search was already underway.
When pressed on why she informed the President at 2:30 p.m. while the former Malawi Defence Force Commander claimed he had called Chakwera at 10:35 a.m., former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba said she could not know how the President reacted and that he never told her.
The overall picture from her testimony is of an office operating without real-time clarity, relying on fragmented phone calls, airport radar gaps, and informal language to track a missing Vice President.
For an international audience, the probe reads as a case study in how institutional ambiguity, personal relationships, and communication breakdowns intersect in a national crisis.
Former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba’s repeated emphasis on mutual respect and brotherhood between Chakwera and Chilima contrasts with the evident confusion over roles, messages, and authority on the day of the crash.
Whether that confusion contributed to delays in the response will likely remain a central line of inquiry as the commission weighs accountability for one of Malawi’s most consequential political tragedies.
