The Malawian administration claims to be looking into a strange fire that burned offices of important government departments housing critical material in Lilongwe, the country’s capital.
The government contracting unit, a division under the president and cabinet’s office, was destroyed when the last two levels of a seven-story government building were completely destroyed by fire.
The lands register and deeds registry, two divisions of the ministry of lands, were also destroyed. The offices, according to a representative, “hold very sensitive information.”
The country’s judiciary’s community services division was completely destroyed in the fire, which is said to have started on Saturday around 23:00 local time.
The investigation into the fire’s origin is being led by the police, with assistance from other security organisations, according to Information and Digitalisation Minister Moses Kunkuyu.
Social media was flooded with suggestions that the fire may have been started by saboteurs and that important data may have been destroyed shortly after the incident was reported.
The information minister assured the public not to “worry about any alleged loss of information for nefarious reasons” by stating that the data had been digitally backed up.
He promised that the inquiries would be completed swiftly and that the results would be made public.