Malawi for improved housing infrastructure

Government has unveiled a new ambitious housing initiative that encourages development of up storey buildings.
The country has for a long time depended on non-storey buildings, a development Housing Minister Peter Mwanza says has contributed to the general lack of space in urban areas.
“This is especially true for civil servants houses and buildings. You will find that most of them are small but take up a lot of space. We want to change this,” said Mwanza.
The new initiative has started with the construction of 200 houses apiece for Malawi Defense Force and Malawi Police Service officers in Lilongwe.
Security officials are one of government’s workers who lack up market housing infrastructure.
Former president Bakili Muluzi used to make fun of their houses, saying he could not understand how an officer with 10 children could manage to house all of them in a one-bed roomed house.
Muluzi could also joke that an officer would sleep with his head and chest in the bedroom, and the legs on the dining room- which also acted as the bedroom for kids and visitors.
“When visitors from the village come, all ‘bedroom work’ (sex) stops until they go back”, Muluzi used to say, to the uproar of United Democratic Front supporters.
Government seems to be building reality from those jokes, as evidenced by its new initiative in Lilongwe- something Mwanza said would change the housing face of Malawi and usher in a new era of respect and dignity for the country’s civil servants.