By Wezzie Gausi:
The Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Security has started investigating circumstances that led to the sale of land that belonged to Maula Prison to O.G Issa Group of Companies by the Ministry of Lands.
This follows a call by the Prison Department for the committee to investigate the sale of the land that was meant for the expansion of Maula Prison in Lilongwe.
Speaking after meeting officials from the Ministry of Lands, Homeland Security, Prison and O.G Group at Parliament Building on Tuesday, committee chairperson Ralph Jooma wondered why the land had to be sold when the prison has always complained of congestion in most of its facilities.
He said the committee does not condone what happened, hence they invited all parties involved to a discussion.
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“From what we have heard from the Secretary for Lands, the ministry has power to change the use of any public land. In this case, the law allows them to take any land that was meant for other issues and turn it into private land. They brought all the documents that indicated that the prison department was involved in the process of selling this land.
“However, the process of selling the land started in 2012 but the prison department was only involved in 2017. So, we have sent them back to furnish the committee with relevant documents that show that the prison department was involved from the word go and not just documents that relate to the year 2017,” Jooma said.
Commissioner General for Prisons Masauko Wiscot said officers at Maula Prison expressed concern that Muhammed Haniff Osman had obtained their land illegally.
He said, looking at documents in their possession, it was only in 2017 when they got a letter from Osman about the land, indicating that it was sold to them.
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“We, as prison, were not aware of the initial stages of the processes that led to the sale of this land. We only consented to about 4 hectares but the land that Osman claims to have appears to be more than 4 hectares that we consented to— where Osman had to build prison staff houses.
“So, the committee has sent us back to work together to get the actual hectares of the land that belonged to Maula prison,” Wiscot said.
Secretary for Lands Devie Chilonga told committee members that the acquisition of the land was duly consented to by the authorising ministries.
He said all procedures were followed and that the money was fully paid by OG Group.
“We have documents that show that the prison was fully aware of the whole process. On March 14 2017, the acting commissioner of that time signed that he was part of the meeting [that agreed] to sell the land to OG Group,” Chilonga said.
OG Group Executive Assistant Chitimbe Wadi said the group paid over K100 million in cash for the land.
“Apart from the money that we paid in cash, we also constructed 10 houses for Maula Prison staff, which cost us more than K500 million. So, we are wondering why this issue is coming up when all procedures were followed,” Wadi said.
O.G Group applied for 5.3 hectares that belonged to Maula Prison but the Ministry of Lands authorised 2.8 hectares.
Maula Prison was intended to house 800 inmates but now holds approximately over 1,805 inmates.
Malawi’s prisons are estimated to exceed their capacity by 200 percent.
