Minister tours MHC, goes after Indian

By Brenda Nkosi – Mana.

Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Kezzie Msukwa on Tuesday went to the house and office of an Indian to investigate how he got land documents from the Lands Ministry that was a property of Malawi Housing Corporation (MHC).

The Minister, who after meeting MHC management at their head office in Blantyre was told that some challenges the company was facing was encroachment of the Ministry of Lands in their property, decided to personally see the house in Mudi.

While in Mudi, he found that the owner was at his office at KU distributors in Makhetha hence he followed him there.

“We want to establish what happened for you to get MHC plot and property from the Ministry of Lands,” asked the Minister.

However, the Indian, identified as Patel told the minister and team that he formally applied for land at the Ministry of Lands who offered it to him at K47 Million as premium and K30 million as development charge.

“I did not know who the land belonged to. All I did was apply for land at the Lands office of which I was awarded and I paid on February 9, 2016,” he said while producing government receipts he got for the payments.

Malawi Housing Corporation Chief Executive Officer, Eunice Napolo said they were surprised to find him demolishing their structures and constructing new buildings. 

“We reached out to him but he gave us documents from Lands and said the land was his,” said Napolo who categorically refused to have been part of the transactions.

The Minister therefore promised to get to the root of the deal as he said the transactions were abnormally done.

“We will go back and make a determination when we thoroughly investigate this issue,” said Msukwa.

The Minister also toured MHC in BCA and Ngumbe where he said he was impressed with the newly constructed houses.

Mana/bn/gjp