Mutharika directs landgate crackdown: 2 Asians facing ACB arrest warrant
After Malawi Police Service arrested three people for allegedly establishing a parallel Lands office and selling plots to unsuspecting buyers using dubious documentation, the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) is interested to interrogate two Asians businesspersons involving the deal.
Police arrested Mustag Mahomed, Chifuniro Simumbe and lawyer Umahu Mataka. They were also looking for aA fourth suspect, Alex Mawaya.
The syndicate has been discovered after President Peter Mutharika had directed the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development to attend to a lot of complaints on double land allocations and issuing of illegal certificates and deeds, according to the ministry’s Secretary Joseph Mwandidya.
ACB sources told Nyasa Times that there is a probe in the land grabbing syndicate.
“They used First Lady’s name illegally to grab land ,” a source said.
According to Mwandidya, the busting of the parallel Lands office has connected the missing links his ministry encounters daily as people complain about having their plots sold or one plot sold to more than one buyer.
He said: “We have complaints often at our office where people complain of their plots being sold without their knowledge.”
Information corroborated with the ministry indicates that about six plots have since been confirmed to have been sold, but the proceeds were not remitted to the Malawi Government Account Number One.
The six plots fraudulently sold include plot number Area 47/1219 allegedly sold by Mahomed at K300 million while Simumbe and Mawaya are suspected to have sold plot numbers Area 43/999, Area 43/998, Area 43/995, Area 43/994 and Area 43/993 at K50 million each.
Mwandidya said the issues of illegal allocation of land could be common throughout the country but what has been discovered is for Lilongwe.
“We will soon be working in other cities of Blantyre, Zomba and Mzuzu to find out if there are similar situations where people were forging signatures and providing official stamps when allocating illegal land,” he disclosed
The Secretary for Lands said all illegally acquired land and plot would be withdrawn from buyers immediately.
“We are urging Lilongwe residents to come to the Ministry to crosscheck check their documents so that they should exactly know whether they own their land or not before losing it to government,” he said.
Private practice lawyer Chikosa Silungwe, who has done international consultancies on land issues, described the busting of the ring as confirmation of corruption in transactions relating to land in the country.
“This confirms that there corruption in land transactions in Malawi which needs to be dealt with. There is need to revamp the land registry system, create an electronic one with various access authorities for various levels of officers,” he said in quotes reported in the press.
Silungwe observed that the current system is easy to tamper with because it is manual and that even junior officers can sign what would purport to be a bona fide title deed document.
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Malawi works houses and Malawi housing houses sold at cheaper
And 7.8 billion no say no arrests?
nthuzi siimafuka popanda moto
SHAME ON MALAWI LEADERS, SELECTIVE JUSTICE ALL THE WAY. THEY ARE INDIANS ANYWAYS WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? IF IT WAS TO THE FIRST CLASS CITIZENS AKA ‘ LOMWE OR CADETS’ THE STORY LINE WILL BE TWISTED!!
Basi all you know is tribalism. If you believe the president is tribalistic. Well, you are no different
Blantyre City Assembly is Worst offender, Land is being taken away from poor Malawians and allocated to Asians. Check new Mpingwe plots, City of Blantyre officials have grown rich by grabbing land from locals and selling to Asians who have a lot of Money. We know the syndicate at City of Blantyre
Nanga nyumba zogulitsidwa mwachinyengo by Malawi Housing? Ndiponso a first lady zikukawakhudza bwanji zogulitsa land? Zinazinsotu just shows kuti corruption is rampant from the top otherwise nobody would believe kuti the first lady can be involved but she must have her name somewhere which makes people believe that she can be involved in this
This country needs an overhaul if we want to develop the likes of Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda etc.
A Chakwera, syndicate imeneyi mudzayifinyefinye
Zonsezitu because we have no leader. Cadet alamula, Mulakho alamula. Mmesa malamulo a Land ownership alipo? Nanga what punishment will be meted on those implicating the 1st lady?
Malawi yawola kwabasi. Why? Because the so-called leader is busy proclaiming his stolen victory, if not globe trotting. Just you wait. Four years from now you will not hear anything more about Russia. If anything, it will Lhomwe children gone to study in Russia, just like China.
All this started long long time ago during one party government. Money was being syphoned from government to bogus Land Lords for whose houses were being occupied by bogus government employees. People have been acquiring land in this way all along. This spilled over to UDF, DPP, PP and now still in DPP. Cabinet Ministers and some top government officials including many clerks have been involved over these years. I have been around a long time to have witnessed this.
They didn’t bribe the president with K145 million.