Secrecy over Mzuni inferno

A smoke of secrecy seems to be thickening over Mzuzu University (Mzuni) following a fire on Friday morning which destroyed books worth about K500 million.

Despite demands for access to information on public affairs, Mzuni vice-chancellor Robert Ridley on Saturday requested to evict journalists from a meeting involving the university staff and Minister of Education, Science and Technology Dr Emmanuel Fabiano.

It took the minister to remind Ridley that the fire that burnt books and computers in the library is an issue of public interest.

But the vice-chancellor was visibly all smiles when the minister said the speakers may restrict themselves to general issues and reserve specific details for a closed meeting if they were not comfortable with the journalists who were invited by government through the Ministry Information aide Chikondi Chimala.

In an interview, Fabiano, who described the tragedy as a big loss, described the closed meeting as one of the consultations to appreciate the cause and gravity of the problem.

“The university will make the information available at its opportune time,” said Fabiano.

When asked to offer a glimpse of the fine details under wraps, Ridley said: “It’s not like we have anything to hide, but this is an internal meeting to discuss various issues about the catastrophe.

“We will be just sharing different people’s perspectives on what they have done and what is happening. Some of that information we have to collect it so that we are reporting facts not rumours,” he said.

The university, which has reportedly lost a haul of new books worth about K100 million, has engaged the fire department at Mzuzu City Council to establish the cause of the fire which the rescue team failed to put out around 3am two days ago.

However, the expert probe comes amidst revelations from students that the disaster could be a result of a long neglected wiring fault.

The majority of the learners interviewed in the shadow of the destroyed library revealed witnessing sparks on several occasions.

Both Fabiano and Ridley indicated that the electrical fault was one of the possible cause of the fire under probe.

While the students and staff blame the headship of the university for not rectifying the electrical system in time following the sparky danger warning signs. n