ADL to evict 128 households at Lumbadzi Estate
Airport Development Limited (ADL) has embarked on a massive eviction exercise of people who do not work at Kamuzu International Airport but stay at Lumbadzi Housing Estate.
The eviction exercise is happening after their injunction was vacated and there is expectation that at least 128 households will be evicted from the estate.
Speaking in an interview, ADL Chief Executive Officer, Rhoda Misomali said the decision to evict the said people has been prompted by shortage of houses for ADL staff.
She said this will give chance to accommodate only those working at the airport.
“As a landlord of Lumbadzi Housing Estate, ADL has a huge demand for accommodation for people who are actually working at the airport.
“In view of this, therefore, ADL has started evicting people who are not supposed to be accommodated at Lumbadzi Housing Estate for the reasons already stated,” Misomali stated.
Despite vacation of the injunction and negotiations made with the concerned tenants through their lawyer, the concerned tenants have not vacated the houses.
According to Misomali, in the year 2000, there were few people working for government in various departments at Kamuzu International Airport (KIA), as a result, some houses at Lumbadzi Housing Estate were vacant prompting ADL to let out some of them to private tenants on one-year tenancy agreements which were subject to renewal.
“Over the years, the number of people working in various government departments at Kamuzu International Airport started to increase and the need for accommodation arose.
“Termination of these tenancy agreements would ensure that accommodation for people working at Kamuzu International Airport is provided, thereby achieving the intended purpose of Lumbadzi Housing Estate,” she said.
The affected tenants had obtained a court injunction on the same but it was vacated. The vacation of the injunction meant that the people concerned were supposed to quit the houses by February, 2018.
Negotiations were done through their lawyer in which it was agreed that they would vacate the houses by May 1st 2018. Some people actually vacated the houses but others have not though it is now five months since this was agreed on.
“This exercise of eviction is just an enforcement of what was agreed upon earlier on. When conducting an eviction exercise, we involve the police for security reasons in the event that some clients become violent,” said Misomali.
She further stated that ADL’s action is within what was agreed upon and all due processes regarding the same were followed. She also said the action is in the best interest of KIA operations to ensure safety, security and effectiveness.
“Lumbadzi Housing Estate has 848 houses. These vacated houses are solely meant to accommodate people working for various governments departments and stakeholders in the Aviation Sector at Kamuzu International Airport.
“These departments are those that perform key roles in airport operations, and the importance of ensuring that people working in these departments stay close to the airport cannot be over emphasized,” explained the ADL CEO.
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FACTS
1. Did the CEO state and explain why there are disparities and irregularities in rentals? People in that ‘sham’ of a so-called housing estate pay several different prices for the same type of house. Others pay 10% of the rental while some don’t even pay at all.
2. The houses are extremely basic, and very far away from the city. They are not even maintained, they look just the way Kamuzu belt them. But the prices as of late revision are so exorbitant based on market value. Not only that, but the prices have been raised constantly every year for the past five or so years.
3. Certain people from other departments at the airport especially Civil Aviation department which also includes the Fire Brigade refuse to pay the commercial rent advertised by ADL. But the company does nothing about it, and in turn presses the few properly paying customers(who are mostly the ones to be evicted) and raises their rentals frequently.
4. The main precedence and condition set by the CEO and her company for the stated eviction is that “Every single person who doesn’t work at the airport must leave the estate”, but you might be surprised that other people who don’t work at the airport have not been asked to leave, for example MRA staff, Department of Immigration staff, Police staff who work in town.
5. ADL’s own staff pay less than half of the commercial rents as ’employee benefit’. ESCOM staff and other parastal employees don’t get any employee benefits of that sort from their organisation. The company does not even do any work at all at the airport except claiming they water flowers, which is supposed to be a City Council job.
6. The company and most of it’s top officials are very corrupt to the extent that they receive bribes from people who want houses, and they then evict other customers to give the houses to those people who bribed.
7. There is massive misallocation of duties at that company. You may find an IT guy employed and performing duties of an ‘Estates Manager’.
8. The people at this company are so cruel to the point that they treat people residing in the estate like refugees. They’ll get in a tenant’s house while the tenant is not at home, together with their hired police ‘henchmen’ and throw out tenant’s properties. Word on the street is that the President knows of their actions of maltreating and oppressing citizens who are his own people.
9. These are goverment houses which were built by Kamuzu, ADL did not even build a single house here. Everybody pays taxes and as such, on top of being a Malawian has the right to good housing. Where do you expect 128 families to go?
10. The housing estate is said to be a ‘commercial’ entity as known by all stakeholders, by intepretation that means everybody can and should stay as long as they are paying the commercial rent, which as stated, some people don’t pay, or pay their own varied sums, and even worse, people can retire and stay for years in the houses without even paying a dime, and it seems like this CEO doesn’t know how to handle business but chase away paying customers. Plus there is no ‘shortage of houses’, it’s just a ploy to get vacant houses they want to give to their ‘bribers’ who give them headaches and sleepless nights.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, it’s a government company that should not even exist in the first place because aviation and flight related activies are run by the Civil Aviation, gardening is for the City Council and houses should be managed by the proper goverment entity, which in this case is government housing agency MHC.
A CEO a madamuwa. Malawi cannot develop. From Cadet to CEO. Kikikikikikiki