Malawis President Bingu wa Mutharika over the weekend finally moved into a controversial 100-million US dollar (550 mio. DKR) palace which until now housed parliament, a top official said on Monday.
– It is true. The president moved into the new state house and we are right there now, chief of staff Ken Ngoma said.
Plans to occupy the palace began in August, three months after Mutharika was elected president, succeeding retired President Bakili Muluzi who served his constitutional two terms from 1994.
The building, with about 300 air-conditioned rooms set in a 555 hectare plot outside the administrative capital Lilongwe, is widely seen as a folly of the countrys founder president Kamuzu Banda.
The former dictator used state funds over 20 years to build the palace when millions of his subjects lived in chronic poverty. Banda only lived there for 90 days.
The Mutharika administration said the building was a “presidential residence” and argued that it should revert to its original proper use.
Mutharika, who pledged to fight endemic poverty in the southern African nation, attracted wide-spread criticism for suggesting that parliament move to an unused sports stadium so that he could occupy the presidential palace.
One of the halls of the gigantic building served as the parliament which has rejected the idea of moving to the sports stadium and is still searching for a new premises.
Mutharika, 72, inherited a battered economy, rife with corruption and burdened with an external debt of more than 2,9-billion US dollar when he took over in May.
His predecessor, Muluzi, often slammed Malawis independence hero Banda for building several lavish residences, and set up an independent committee after his election 10 years ago to investigate how the palace could be used to generate funds.
Recommendations that it should be used either as a casino or hotel fizzled out as the government failed to find suitable foreign investors. – Sapa-AFP
