It has emerged that the impact of Tropical Cyclone Freddy has not spared civil servants as it has displaced 400 of them and their families in four of the affected districts.

During a tour of Mulanje and Phalombe districts yesterday to cheer up survivors and assess damage, Vice-President Saulos Chilima learnt that the 400 civil servants are in Mulanje, Phalombe, Thyolo and Zomba districts.

District commissioners (DCs) in the affected districts confirmed the development in separate interviews. They said the most affected civil servants are teachers, police officers and health care workers.

Mulanje DC David Maxwell Gondwe said about 150 civil servants in Mulanje, including Malawi Revenue Authority and Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services officers, have been displaced, especially in Muloza area.

He said: “This has heavily affected service delivery in Mulanje. We have police officers, HSAs [health surveillance assistants], nurses and Forestry officers who have been displaced and how can they provide the services. So, Tropical Cyclone Freddy has really affected the district.”

Chilima visits the source of mudslides on one of the mountains in Phalombe

Phalombe DC Douglas Moffat said about 100 civil servants in the district are working in distressful conditions as a majority of their families are also in evacuation camps.

“They are just reporting for duties because the DC has said so. But majority of these officers, including police officers, healthcare workers and others are also living in camps because their houses were demolished by Cyclone Freddy,” he said.

On her part, Thyolo DC Rosemary Nawasha said as of yesterday, about 70 civil servants were displaced in the district.

“Apart from the displaced civil servants, we have also lost a teacher who fell into a pit latrine, but the figure is likely to go up since we are still doing the assessment,” she said.

Zomba DC Reignard Chavula said preliminary report show that about 50 civil servants have been displaced of whom 28 are teachers.

During his visit in Phalombe and Mulanje, Chilima continued urging people of the benefits of re-afforestation and stressed the need to relocate families from hilly areas.

He said: “What we are saying is, in all these places there is siltation. We can excavate the sand, using funds at council level to buy cement, get quality assurance people to check the quality of bricks that will be moulded and these can be used to build more resilient structures.”

Meanwhile, Phalombe South legislator Mary Mpanga has asked government to relocate some villages in disaster prone areas in her constituency.

She observed that some villages such as Bokosi which was hard hit by floods popularly on March 10 1991 face disasters almost every year.

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