MALAWI'S President Bingu wa Mutharika had temporarily abandoned his controversial palace because he was being haunted by ghosts, a top aide said today. "It's true that the president is no longer staying there, and we have asked clerics from several Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic, to pray for the new state house to exorcise evil spirits," said Malani Mtonga, an aide on religious affairs.Mr Mtonga said that since the president, who is a Catholic, occupied the palace in December last year, he had been hearing "strange noises that keep him awake, or feels rodents crawling all over his body, but when he turns on the lights, he sees nothing". Since abandoning the palace in the administrative capital Lilongwe, Mr Mutharika has been operating from another palace in Kasungu, 100km away. Mr Mtonga said the president had asked for "special prayers" to exorcise the evil spirits.
Until last year the building housed the country's parliament, but Mr Mutharika kicked out the politicians, saying it was intended to be a residence and should "revert to its original proper use". The palace, containing some 300 air-conditioned rooms and set in 555 hectares of land outside the capital, is widely seen as a folly of the country's founding president Kamuzu Banda. It took 20 years to build, but was only occupied by Mr Banda for 90 days. Mr Mutharika's predecessor Bakili Muluzi refused to live in the palace, saying it was too extravagant. Mr Banda gained notoriety for building a number of palaces across the southern African nation as millions of his subjects suffered extreme poverty.