HRDC wants ACB to probe Batatawala land deal, others
Shocked by news that businessperson Abdul Karim Batatawala irregularly purchased land belonging to the Museums of Malawi in Blantyre, Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has demanded that the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) probes the transaction.
The Coalition has also called on government to conduct a national audit on all public land.
Reacting to the news on Friday after our sister newspaper The Nation published a story following a High Court ruling against Batatawala, HRDC chairperson Gift Trapence said the audit would ensure that no public land was illegally sold.
According to court documents in Civil Cause Number 162 of 2018, Batatawala, through one of his several companies, Platinum Investment Limited, bought public land in 2013 from the Ministry of Lands, which he later leased for 99 years.
The land in questioon, on plot number BE 60 at Mandala suburb, belonged to the Department of Museums and Monuments that bought it from the African Lakes Corporation Limited (ALCL) in 1961 under Title Deed number 27190.
In 2014, the Department of Museums blocked Batatawala from developing the land but the latter took the matter to court demanding about K407 million from government, which the court threw out.
But HRDC, in a statement on Friday, demanded law enforcement agencies, especially the ACB, to immediately commence investigations into the sale of public land to Batatawala, to determine how the said land was sold.
“People have to be taken to task to ensure that public land is protected… Our final call is for the Ministry of Lands to conduct an internal investigation into this issue and release a public report on what transpired for a whole government ministry to be involved in such a dubious sale,” said Trapence in the statement.
He said, like the court observed, the sale of the land, which the ministry sold without consulting the Department of Museums was both irregular and suspicious, and raises a lot of questions about transactions the ministry has undertaken over time.
“Coming against a backdrop of land encroachment by those close to the seat of power, we suspect that there could be a whole lot more of such transactions that have gone unnoticed,” he said.
In his December 23 2021 ruling, Judge Mike Tembo argued Platinum Investment Limited dealt with the Ministry of Lands in circumstances that appeared opaque in so far as the Department of Museums was concerned.
The court then defended the Museums’ justification to protest the development of the land by Platinum Investment Limited, saying it acted unreasonably.
