Presidential lodge abandoned

It once hosted world leaders and the British monarch. The current First Couple lived there when the First Gentleman, Richard Banda, was the sitting chief justice.

Today, the presidential lodge at Nyambadwe in Blantyre looks like a broken shell, nay, a ghost mining town abandoned after all the precious stones have been extracted.

The coat of arms that once gave it the intimidating official grandeur has disappeared.

Part of the steel gate, which controlled entry into the state house property, is gone, leaving it with a permanent yawn that lets in anyone walking in and out of the once tightly guarded national asset.

There is no security.

The paramilitary police that were a static feature at the entrance as well as in and around the lodge’s grounds no longer patrol the premises, at least not on that Tuesday morning, around 11am, on August 27 2013 when this journalist drove right through the entrance, prowled the property’s grounds, peeped through the residence’s windows undisturbed and wondered at the audacity of neglecting such a gothic piece of investment.

The once exquisitely trimmed and evergreen grass is now an overgrown bush so starved of water it has dried into a perfect bushfire ignition.

Half-hearted attempts to renovate it during the Bingu wa Mutharika government  that manifest themselves in some form of a brick perimeter fence were abandoned last year following Mutharika’s sudden death and subsequent shift of power to President Joyce Banda.

The years of neglect mean that the cost of facelifting the residence could be almost similar to that of building a similar property, according to a real estate expert working with the Ministry of Lands and Housing who asked not to be named.

The expert said the Nyambadwe Presidential Lodge would be worth, at a bare minimum, K35 million (US$106 060).

Said the expert: “If we talk about the market price for houses of that size in Nyambadwe, we are looking at something not less than K35 million, but I am aware of the fact that such houses have finishing that is not ordinary, so, the cost is very high. So, government might be playing with a national asset that is worth millions.

“Just to put up that fence so far, over K12 million (US$36 363)was spent. If we talk about renovating the house and putting it back to habitable condition, it will cost more money. In fact, renovations are more expensive than building a new house,” he said.

He added: “It is true that the works were ongoing until [the Banda administration] came to power and since then nothing is happening. It might be change in priorities or things just got mixed up during the transition. Unfortunately, it is true that more money will be needed to renovate and refurbish it.”

The Nation was unable to get an official comment from the Ministry of Lands and Housing as they did not respond to a questionnaire sent to them last week.

But speaking on behalf of State House—under whose control the Nyambadwe property falls—presidential press secretary Steven Nhlane said government has not abandoned the house.

“The house has not been deserted. PMF [Police Mobile Force] is providing security. The Nyambadwe House was handed [back] to State Residences in 2009 [from the Judiciary]. But due to the condition it was in, it needed to be renovated to make it habitable,” he said.

Nhlane said Blantyre Water Board (BWB) had stalled the work, which State Residences was doing to complete fencing the house.

He said BWB has not re-routed the water pipes that pass through the main gate as advised for the renovations to proceed.

“State Residences was given the task of building a perimeter fence. This was done. BWB was asked to relocate water pipes, which pass right across the main entrance. Apart from the awaited renovations, everything is intact,” said Nhlane.

“The buildings department’s mandate was to provide technical support to State House in terms of schedule of materials for the perimeter fence and the renovations on the house which were quite huge. They did this,” he said.

Added Nhlane: “State House constructed the perimeter fence. There is a budget for renovations of the house in the 2013/14 budget. Everything is fine with the house, but there is need for extensive renovations if it is to be used as a guest house.”

However, Nhlane could not say how much has been spent on the renovations and fencing of the house so far, the amount required to make the house habitable and how much has been planned for the residence in the 2013/14 budget.

But BWB public relations officer Catherine Chilemba, while confirming in a questionnaire response this week that State House tasked her organisation to move the water pipes from the main gate, said the board completed that exercise last year.

“Yes, the need to re-route the pipe was communicated to Blantyre Water Board. The re-routing works on 50mm diameter pipe were carried out immediately while the renovations were in progress. As far as we are concerned, Blantyre Water Board managed to do its part.”

Interestingly, when The Nation returned to the house yesterday, we found BWB technicians working at the site. There were still no guards at the gate, but one was found inside. Another one comes in the night, it was learnt.

The property was built by the colonial government to accommodate the Provincial Council governor.

But since independence in 1964, the house has been used to suit the needs of the sitting government.

Kamuzu Banda immediately turned it into part of State House where he used to host his VVIPs, including heads of State and government, according to his long time aide Nicholas Dausi. In the 1980s, United Kingdom’s Princess Anne stayed at the house during an official visit to Malawi.

However, when Bakili Muluzi took over government as first multiparty president in 1994, he proposed that some State residences be sold because there were “too many for one person” and the Nyambadwe property was one of them.

When the Nyambadwe House survived the sale, it was allocated to the Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) who is now called Chief Secretary to Government, but it was not occupied until the Judiciary took it over when Richard Banda was chief justice.

Banda’s predecessor, retired chief justice Leonard Unyolo, also spent sometime in the house, but the just-retired Judiciary boss Lovemore Munlo did not occupy the presidential lodge during his tenure of office.

It was during that time that the country was left in suspense as to what had happened to the house with some quarters speculating that the presidential lodge had been bought by a senior Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government official at the time.

“That was not true that the house was bought by anybody in government. The former president Professor Bingu wa Mutharika, wanted to turn it into a State Guest House where he would be hosting presidents and other VVIPs,” said Dausi, who was deputy minister in the Office of the President and Cabinet in Mutharika’s government.

Dausi said the Nyambadwe house remained     the responsibility  of State  Residences although the renovation and maintenance works were done in conjunction with other stakeholders.

“Nyambadwe House, like any other State House, was purely the State House responsibility, but various stakeholders such as Ministry of Lands and Housing were involved when we started renovations, but the coordinating unit was State House. The works there stopped immediately after the death of the former president,” he said.

According to Dausi, the former president had a dream of re-establishing State residences in Karonga, Mzimba and Nsanje, which were sold during the UDF government.