KIA lift scam: Officers cover over 400 steps to, and from, offices daily for 11 years

Air traffic controllers (ATCs) the world over usually operate from sophisticated, nearly all-glass offices perched on the tallest building at the airport.

It thus goes without saying that to reach their skyscraper-like offices with ease, the officers need the help of modern lifts, or elevators.

But that is where the enviable generalities about ATCs stop. It seems any more positives are only applicable in other countries. Weekend Nation investigative team’s recent visit to Malawi’s most modern airport, Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) in Lilongwe, has revealed that it is hell-like work for the nine ATCs at the airport to get to and from their offices.

 They have to climb 217 steps to their office every day. The steps scale the 175-metre control tower, with the floor-to-thetower trip generally branded the ‘back-breaker’ by the workers.

This means when an ATC goes to his or her office and later descends down the steps, to the ground floor, a whopping 434 steps will have been cleared.

“But that assumes I have not forgotten something important either at the office or on the ground floor. Because if that is the case, it means doubling the figures,” chuckled one ATC, who pleaded for anonymity.

The lift-climbing ‘punishment’ the ATCs and dozens of fellow officers in the lower floors of the control tower have been enduring can be said to be one of the most closely-kept secrets at the airport.

Those who have felt the pain, and their bosses who could have done something to liberate them, have apparently not talked much about it, if at all.

Certainly, this is shocking news to the unsuspecting visitors and admirers who are mesmerised by the airport’s modernity.

But it has been 11 years since the lift that was servicing the ATCs and the other people in KIA’s control tower area broke down, forcing the workers to go to, and from, their offices the ‘primitive’ way of using the steps.

One of the ATC staff said they have been tight-lipped about their problems for fear of reprisals from their bosses “who hardly visit us here at the control tower.”

He said their conditions get worse during the rainy season when some parts of the steps are rendered wet by rainwater that seeps into the building.

This reporter dared to go up and down the daunting steps.

When going up, he had a spring in his step, but he ended up almost a muscle cramp victim by the time he was returning to the ground floor.

The staff hoped to see some light at the end of their tunnel when Parliament in Lilongwe recently discussed the cause of their suffering.

Member for Chitipa South Werani Chilenga (PP) raised the matter when he asked Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Samuel Tembenu for an update on the KIA control tower lift that was supposed to be sourced from Kenya, to replace the initial faulty one that was grounded many years ago.

Tembenu said the Kenya-based company failed to replace the tower and ‘disappeared’ last year into receivership after Malawi had just paid its $48 500 (about K35 million) bill.

The minister added that his ministry is currently in touch with the Malawi Embassy in Kenya to engage lawyers to take up the case, so as to recover the money.

But the government ’ s admission of a botched up procurement process did not go down well with most opposition members who questioned how the Kenya-based company disappeared last year only after all the money from Malawi had been transmitted abroad.

Some members expressed suspicion that the foreign company may have used inside information from some Malawian crooks to loot the public purse.

In no time, shouts of ‘Liftgate’ could be heard in the Chamber, the ‘gate’ reference being the suffix people have tended to attach to scandals that have rocked Malawi, including those on cash, oil, tractors and maize.

Chilenga, who is also Parliament’s chairperson of the Natural Resources and Climate Change Committee said government does not seem serious enough in pursuing the lift case.

“We need to move speedily, for delays only work to the advantage of crooks. Last year, our Parliamentary Committee on Transport heard the same story about government trying to engage lawyers in Nairobi. Why should we be moving so slowly that we are still at the same stage today?” he queried.

He was referring to comments Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale had made to The Nation in Lilongwe recently that the lift case arose before the government of President Peter Mutharika came to power.

Kaphale stated: “It involved the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), who were trying to procure an elevator for the control tower at KIA. The contractor, from Kenya, can no longer respond to DCA’s mail after collecting all the money, all of which was paid through bank transfers.

“My office was tasked to review the file and try to come up with a solution on the way forward. But any solution will hinge on my office discovering whether the company still exists as a going concern and, if not, whether any of its shareholders, or directors, can be traced in Kenya.”

He said he has contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to help by procuring the services of a law firm based in Nairobi, Kenya, to assist in tracing the company in question.

“ Treasury has already approved the exercise,” he explained, adding that he will not disclose the name of the errant company in the matter, for fear of jeopardising investigations.

Kaphale said some senior officers try to make major procurements without proper safeguards against financial loss.

“If we were paying out that sort of money abroad against a future delivery of an elevator, at least we should have sought and obtained a bank guarantee from the contractor. I do not know if my office was consulted to provide legal advice or vet the contract as drawn.

“Sometimes public officers, for their own reasons, or out of naivety or inexperience about the pitfalls of international commerce, do proceed to enter into contracts without using our services,” said Kaphale.

He described the lift case as somewhat complicated.

“Rest assured, however, that once the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reverts to us, my office will do the needful to try and recover the money,” he said.

Transport and Public Works publicist James Chakwera indicated in a response to a questionnaire that even if KIA is undergoing a whopping US$30.4 million expansion and modernisation transformation, thanks to a grant from the Japan Government, the lift issue will eventually be sorted out, but it is not necessarily prioritised just now.

“It is regrettable that the issue of the lift has taken this long to be resolved and that, indeed, the concerned officers are having to endure such a hardship. It took long to discuss with the property managers but also when DCA decided to act, the procurement process experienced several challenges in terms of resource mobilisation and payment; and the situation has been compounded further by the disappearance of the contractor,” Chakwera said