Ndata House: Bingu must explain his wealth
By Green Muheya, Nyasa Times
This first picture of President Bingu wa Mutharika’s White House style of his Ndata House shows obscene opulence by the Head of State of an impoverished nation.
Mutharika is called by the civil society organisations in Malawi to declare his assets and explain financial sources that enabled him to buy and develop Ndata Farm in Thyolo.
Portuguese construction company Mota-Engil Construction was hired to construct the Ndata House and also constructed late Ethel Mutharika’s ‘Taj Mahal’ style of Mausoleum at Ndata Farm.
Mota-Engil is the same company that government awarded a contract to construct a 10 kilometre road at unbudgeted cost of MK850 million without following tender procedures. It is almost monopolising all major contracts by Malawi government.
But civil society leaders in a petition they presented after the July 20 demonstrations, asked Mutharika to explain his wealth.
Seven years before he was appointed President, Mutharika is on record admitting that he was broke and that a commercial bank refused him a K100, 000 loan.
After he was fired from Comesa, jobless Mutharika became destitute to a point of becoming a driver-cum-conductor of his Bineth minibus which was operating in Lilongwe on Likuni road.
The 77-year-old former World Bank economist was later hired by former president Bakili Muluzi as deputy Reserve Bank Governor and then Minister of Economic Planning before he was handpicked as Muluzi’s successor.
Mutharika is reported to have also built another mansion in Portugal.
