Tikwere House in Lilongwe was torched deliberately to conceal corruption at the Ministry of Lands, ACB reveals
Malawi is stinking with corruption with the latest being the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) itself disclosing that it has evidence that the fire at Tikwere House at City Centre in Lilongwe in May last year was a deliberate ploy by some people to conceal information.
The building which houses several government offices, including the Ministry of Lands’ Land Registry and the Government Contracting Unit under the Office of the President and Cabinet, became the focal point of an investigation.
ACB acting director general Hilary Chilomba disclosed that the bureau is pursuing cases related to the fire incident.
He spoke in an interview in Lilongwe on Thursday on the sidelines of a public lecture he presented at Natural Resources College (NRC) titled ‘Corruption in the Land Sector’.
Said Chilomba: “That fire was deliberate and the people tried to conceal evidence. There are some cases we are pursuing of some people who own property like houses and they wanted to destroy evidence at the Lands Registry. But we still have the electronic records of all the information so we will still get the culprits.”
While the acting DG did not disclose the identities of the suspects and the status of the investigations, he said the graft- busting body is closing in on the suspects.
The fire primarily impacted the sixth and seventh floors of the building. The place remains deserted.
