A Cashgate beneficiary testifies

Because of the cold weather that has pervaded Cashgate City, which has been our operations launch pad for all our tourism-cum-business-cum journalism activities for some time now, we, Sheikh Jean-Philippe LePoisson, SC (RTD), Mzee Native Authority Mandela, Abiti Joyce Befu, MG 66, and I, the Mohashoi, prudently decided to conserve our outing energies by staying indoors. Prudently, too, we restricted ourselves to simple and less energy-supping chores such as reading, eating, swallowing and drinking. Our drinks comprised nothing beyond fantakoko and some testosterone-enhancing fluids like Sanctuary Hakushu and Blantyre Single Barrel.

Our new home, something called Taya Izi, located along the Lilongwe-Mchinji Highway, is quite quiet and conducive to private study, mostly because it is meant for the above average middle class. Since, it is rather too quiet for our liking, we sometimes venture out to some joints in town.  Last week, we visited the New Lilongwean, where we caroused ourselves to near-death courtesy of our legislators, who are in town to discuss our budget, no, to spend our budget, without consulting us to tell them our priorities. As is expected of people who imbibe on other people’s pockets, we were virtually the last people to leave the place. At what time we really left the New Lilongwean and how we got back to Taya Izi, only Jah Rastafari can tell. However, we can recall the conversation we had with the long-serving barman, named Ras Kangwazi.

“You know, things are really bad these days,” the barman, Ras Kangwazi, whispered to Sheikh Jean-Philippe.

“How?” Jean-Philippe shouted, out of syncopation.

“During those days, this pub was full almost every hour of the night,” the barman went on in the same low tone.

“Which days? Don’t be cryptic. Call a spoon a spoon,” Sheikh Jean-Philippe commanded, belching almost at the beginning of every word he uttered.

“I mean during the Cashgate Season.  People, great people, some of whom are in government today, would come here and buy drinks worth K400 000 and leave us with K100 000 as a tip,” the barman said.

“Did you say a tip of K100 what?” Jean-Philippe quizzed the barman.

“K100 000. Cash. Each morning we used to go home with loads of cash. K20 thousand was the minimum I remember each of us took home every morning,” the barman said, wiping his face.

“Why are you weeping?” I asked.

“No. I am not weeping,” the barman protested.

“But you are wiping tears from your eyes!” I charged.

“No, I was only wiping sleep from my face,” the barman challenged.

“Are you sure you can wipe sleep away?” I wondered.

“Ask your guard. All those who work without stop to earn a genuine living or pass examinations do wipe away sleep from their faces. If you have never wiped sleep from your face, I will conclude, you have never suffered or passed any genuine examination in your life!”

“To you, was Cashgate good or bad?” Mzee Native Authority Mandela asked.

“I don’t know. Cashgate was bad in far as it ‘impoverished’ the country, but to be honest, lady and gents, Cashgate made people like me feel, for once, that Malawi indeed belongs to us all. For the first time, some of us were able to handle enough money to even build houses! All over Cashgate City, new structures sprouted out like mushrooms in the rainy season, most of them belonging to indigenous Malawians, the very people who merely saw foreigners and half Malawians get rich. So, Cashgate may have impoverished government but it enriched struggling Malawians. To me, Cashgate proved that this country has more money than is often declared. The new Cashgate audit report says Kuba has been going on before, during, and after Joyce Banda’s lackluster administration but civil servants, MPs, academics, presidents, vice president, first ladies, second ladies, police officers, soldiers, have always been paid. Except in Greece, governments never run out of money,” the barman declared.

“You mean that you benefitted from the theft of public money and you have the audacity to boast here?” Abiti Joyce Befu, who had been following the conversation in silence, asked so suddenly she sounded like a fresh volcanic eruption.

“Well, some of us did not even know government money was being stolen. If a child grows healthy from his father’s theft, is the child also guilty of theft?” the barman quizzed.

“Now that you know that you benefitted from proceeds of criminal activities, are you prepared to assist the state to trace some of the Cashgate magnets or give back whatever you got from them?” Abiti inquired.

“Give back? What? To whom? Why? Until all the people who have swindled this country since 1964 come forward to surrender the proceeds of their looting, I will not, even at machine-gun point, ever reveal the name of anyone who assisted me when all of you people just laugh at us and overwork us, poor people. I will not pay back anything to anyone anytime. Period.  Is that clear? Now leave this place; we are closing the pub!”

“Can we have one last round?” I proposed.

“I said you must get out now or I will call my security!!!” the barman fumed.

We understood and left the bar like drenched mice.