Lilongwe City Mayor, Richard Banda told Zodiak online, the contractor, Guoji diverted from an earlier design that was submitted to the council.

The few tenants that have already occupied the stores now risk eviction according to Mayor Banda.

“The structure which is there is not the one they submitted to council for approval, with those changes, that’s why we have come in to demolish those structure,” said Banda.

The contractor according to Banda has 21 days to furnish the council with the new design.

Said Banda: “We had a meeting with the owner of that building to change the shape of that building and he has pledged to do this within the said period.”

Responding to the directive, Engineers Institute of Malawi President, Alfoso Chikuni says this is a welcome development as the country has for a long time used contractors that fail to respect construction principles.

“This is one of the examples of many projects that have been left without supervision, it is a planning aspect, they are many issues including lack of professionals, engineering is a profession, it is not a hobby but most of these contractors take engineering as a hobby,” Chikuni added.

Contractor for the project according to the city landlord offered to add another storey on top of the raised structures but this is subject to an assessment engineers are to conduct on whether the initial design can take additional storeys.