I am writing this article on 30th December 2015. This is a day before the year ends and another (2016) is ushered in. You can take the approach that many other people take, which is to say that, come 1st January 2016, it is just another day. There is basically nothing special with 1st January only that some people want to blow things out of proportion.
Or, you could be the sort of people who like to have meaning for 1st January each year. People will be asking one another how they have “entered the year”, as if it was through a door of some kind. It is, in my opinion, the same kind of thinking that we sometimes have when we talk about “eating money.” This person, we hear from colleagues, akudya ndalama (he is eating money.” Now if there is a person who I will be interesting to hear from how he has “finished” the year and how he has “entered” 2016, it is Chileka Airport Station Officer (SO) Frank Yesaya. Officer Yesaya has had a bad year and it does not appear that he’s entering the year on a good note.
I do not know Mr Yesaya personally. But I have seen him and spoken to him a couple of times when I have exited the country or going from Blantyre to Lilongwe via Chileka Airport, and most of these times, using taxpayers’ money. I am a public officer as I have written over and over again. I am paid from account number 1. The money that I was paid a few years ago was the cousins and young brothers of the same money that went into Cashgate. It was all taxpayers’ money. While the salary that I got came my way into my bank account, the othermoneys went to become Cashgate money. If cashgate never occurred, some of that money would have found its way into my salary, for I am paid by Mr Chauncy Simwaka, the budget director. In those days, it would have been Mr Mphwiyo.
Last time I met Mr Yesaya, I was asking him why in this day and age for public servants (and may be civil servants) are not asked letters of authorization before he allows us exit from KIA or Chileka. I reminded him that about 20 years ago, it was unheard of, if not a punishable offence for any civil servant or public servant to leave the country without authorisation. Today, public servants are gallavanting the world with no due regard for order. A few weeks later, I learned that Mr Yesaya’s official police residence at Chileka was gutted down by fire. Not only that, all his property was damaged. I have seen the house by the way. And then what is the solution? A good Samaritan in Chileka is now accommodating the officer. And what is the police service (not police force) doing? I believe something is being worked but it is taking too long. He has no place to call home. Officer Yesaya needs a house today. Please ndapota nanu a Kachama. n
