Is the red star Campaign a flop?

Has the decree that President Peter Mutharika issued in 2015, that city councils should demolish substandard structures flopped?

Mutharika ordered the demolition in 2015, saying the structures were a threat to lives, and an eyesore.

Presidential spokesperson Mgeme Kalilani said in an interview on Wednesday that it is necessary to take down the buildings, first and foremost to prevent possible loss of lives.

But three years after the President made the order, no council has started implementing it because one property owner obtained an injunction against the order.

Deputy registrar of the High Court Agnes Patemba, in a telephone interview on Wednesday, attributed court’s failure to handle the case to huge workload that the judge assigned the case had.

Said Patemba: “This is one of the delayed cases, I must admit. The judge assigned to this case has had too much work. The case is pending hearing as the judge indicated it might come up this coming April for an inter partes hearing.”

In 2011, an ageing building which previously housed Kips Restaurant along Hannover Street in Blantyre collapsed and killed three people, and injured scores of others.

In the 1980s, former president Kamuzu Banda mounted a similar campaign dubbed ‘Red Star’ to remove structures that were deemed not fit to be in central business districts (CBDs) of Blantyre.

Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development spokesperson Muhlabase Mughogho in an e-mailed response on Monday said the councils’ hands were tied by the court order hence there has been no progress on the matter.

“As ministry, our major role is to continuously provide policy direction and support to the councils. In the mentioned case, we are concerned that nothing is being done. But at this point, we cannot defy court orders as the matter is still in court.” she said.

Malawi Institute of Engineers (MIE) deputy chief executive officer Wilson Chirwa said in an e-mailed response on Thursday the threat that unfit structures pose is still relevant.

He said: “Buildings have a life span. Some of the buildings were constructed a long time ago and have outlived their life-span. In addition, building standards get reviewed to accommodate new requirements such as resistance to earthquakes.

“Accordingly, the concerned buildings do not measure up to the new standards and are a hazard to human life in the event of strong earthquakes or strong winds because they were not engineered to that level.”

But Chirwa blamed the city and town councils for their failure to enforce existing by-laws.

“I am aware that the buildings marked with red stars were of inadequate structural strength as inspected. Secondly, there are finance issues as owners would have to put up multi-storey structures to replace single storey buildings due to new zoning requirements,” he said.

Kalilani, in a WhatsApp response on Wednesday, said as government which has “sufficient interest in the matter tried to have the injunctions vacated, but failed”.

He said the presidential order was necessitated by assessments by individual councils.

“When the injunctions were granted to the property owners against the exercise, government tried to have the court orders vacated, but we have not been successful thus far. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do if the courts feel their orders are justified and should be sustained.”

Some tenants and users of the buildings expressed fears that some of the structures were really a threat to life.

A tenant in one of the buildings, close to some government offices in Blantyre said the building he was renting had developed cracks.

“These buildings have outlived their lifespan. But the problem is that we cannot afford upmarket buildings whose rental fees are too high for us. Otherwise there are cracks in the building that show weaknesses in the structure. The day we experienced an earth tremor in Blantyre we were very afraid that the structure would collapse,” said the tenant who runs a laundry business.

A stamp maker Oswald Maulidi who operates from another building marked with a red star bemoaned the rise in rates as the reason for continuing to use an old building.

“We are aware that the government earmarked these buildings for demolition. However, it is difficult for some small businesses like mine to find space in an upmarket building. That is why I am still operating from this building. But the threat is real,” he said. n