Government to probe Tikwere House fire

Ministry of Information and Digitisation says government will expedite investigations into the cause of a fire that gutted Tikwere House at City Centre in Lilongwe on Saturday night.

The building houses several government offices, including the Ministry of Lands’ land registry and the Government Contracting Unit under the Office of the President and Cabinet.

In a statement issued yesterday, Minister of Information and Digitisation Moses Kunkuyu assured that all information for the affected government ministries, departments and agencies is backed up electronically, as such, has not been affected by the fire.

He said: “Government would like to assure the nation that all Ministry of Lands information is intact as it is backed up digitally in the Ministry’s Land Information Management System and the nation should, therefore, not worry about any alleged loss of information for nefarious reasons.”

The fire mainly affected sixth and seventh floors of Tikwere House.

National Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya in an interview yesterday said they are yet to establish the cause of the fire and the value of the damaged property as investigations are in progress.

“There were no casualties and we have not received reports of any injuries due to the fire. In fact, investigations are still going on and we are yet to establish what caused the fire,” he said.

Meawhile, some security guards in the vicinity of the premises, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they noticed the fire in one of the rooms of the building on Saturday night and alerted the Fire Department of the Lilongwe City Council who came to extinguish it.

The city council firefighters in turn called a team from Kamuzu International Airport, about 25 kilometres away, who rushed to the scene and put out the fire.

This is not the first time Tikwere House has caught fire. In January 2019, a similar incident also took place.