The Ibrahim Matola lie: Malawi sikhola la ng'ombe ayi..

The house as it appears on the valuation report

Last week has been eventful in Parliament. The much dubbed cash gate scandal has turned our politicians into a bunch of clowns who instead of working to get rid of the dirty in government are busy throwing punches at each other. The PP administration took plenty of time to show us how clueless they can be on matters of national importance such as this.

What drew my attention most were remarks made by PP’s Ibrahim Matola who accused the leader of the Democratic Progressive Party DPP Professor Arthur peter Mutharika of buying some Lilongwe City Council house in Area 10 fraudulently and snatching pieces of land for the Bineth Trust.

After hearing all the political guzzles I was like wow! “He who seeks equity must come with hands”. But wait a minute, I never stopped there. I took time to investigate and these are my findings:

The interior view of the said house before the facelift.

•  The inspection for the property was done on 12^th  October, 2005.
• The property in question is Plot No 10/457 Ulemu Road
• According to a valuation report that I have, done by Property Management Development Valuation, the house was being described as a modern house which situated in a very desirable part of Lilongwe, Area 10. However the report states that the property that time was in a very poor state of repair and was not occupied. Who would be occupying a house like that anyway?
• The report states that the property was in a bad state and extensively vandalised as it had been vacant for so many years and LL City Council had literally abandoned it (see pictures)   
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  The servant's quarters

• Some of the defects noted during valuation include;

§  Broken glass and missing louver panes in many windows

§  Damaged doors, cupboards and other wooden fittings

§  Leaking roof, torn fly screens, missing electrical fittings, missing mortice locks, damaged sagging and stained ceiling boards.

§  Defective garage door

§  Property requires internal redecoration

§  Damaged sanitary fittings

§  Termite attack on woodwork, rusty roof sheets, vandalised kitchen sink.

§  The servant’s quarters had missing locks, damaged doors, and cracked floors, broken glazing and damaged floor screed.

• The property in question was owned leasehold by Lilongwe City Assembly from Malawi Government and the annual ground rent was pegged at K73.00 at the time of inspection.
• I have also established that this was not a house for the mayor, it once occupied by some officer from the City Council's accounts department as propagated by some party zealots.

What attracted me most on the valuation report is the rating assessment which categorised the property in the “current Valuation roll for the City of Lilongwe as House and Premises. No wonder I was not surprised seeing that the land (0.384 hectors) with the property being pegged at close to K3 million.
 

The actual pricing

Now my point is, PP stop bumping Malawi as your ball. Go out there and take responsibility of the mess as people in charge of Malawi. We are sick and tired of this your blame game, DPP this, DPP that. You have a government to run, osati khola la ng’ombe kapena kowumba zidina ayi. Malawi is for us all therefore we all need to develop. This cash gate scandal is becoming boring because we cant even see your seriousness in all this. 

I rest my case!