Bingu in trouble with Ndata villagers over shopping mall land
President Bingu wa Mutharika is in trouble with villagers at his retiring home Ndata in Thyolo district who are demanding compensation for their land which the President has snatched from them for the construction of a shopping mall.
Mutharika is constructing a shopping mall near the Malawi (Mikolongwe) University of Science and Technology (Must) at Ndata but the shopping mall has encroached land from some villagers.
“We agreed to be compensated but the compensation was too little and we refused to get it. We want to get money worth for our land,” said one village headman who refuse to be named for fear of losing his title.
An irate man also said the land was just taken away from them from finalizing discussions on the compensation.
“We gave the land considering that it is the head of state that wants it for a shopping mall. We were told that Goliati will become a town and these developments were still coming and refusing to release land would deny ourselves the town,” the villager head.
Meanwhile, Mutharika has accused the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Development for sabotaging his Must university for not connecting water to the building.
The university has missed its October 2012 deadline.
In the near past, Mutharika came under fire from a contractor who built his wife’s mausoleum fence for not paying him. Till now, the contractor has not been paid.
Three years ago, Mutharika and villagers around Ndata were in a battlefield over the use of a graveyard inside Ndata Farm. The President stopped the villagers from burying their dead in the
graveyard because he had bought the farm.
