Macra hires ‘cadet’ with corruption case

Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (Macra) director general Godfrey Itaye is pushing for the recruitment of a well known Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) cadre involved in documented corruption scandals Charles Fodya as head of  newly created division called CERT.

Fodya was arrested in 2016 in a Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) prepaid metres scandal but because of his connections to the ruling party, the corruption case never took off despite his arrest.

Now Itaye is pushing for his recruitment as Head of CERT at Macra. CERT is a new department at Macra that tracks computer users.

Nyasa Times sources said Fodya attended interviews for the position which took place on Wednesday April 8 2020 in Blantyre and came second but Itaye is pushing members of the interviewing panel to offer the job to Fodya despite being the second best.

“We are wondering why the director general wants this guy so badly. He has a corruption case hanging over his head and we have to recruit such characters really?” wondered an insider at Macra.

On 1^st October 2016,  Nyasa Times carried a story detailing the arrest of Fodya and his relation, Sinosi Maliyano who was working at LWB for giving a contract to Fodya, his relative, to supply 5000 prepaid water metres.

Fodya used his connections within the system to frustrate the case.

Both Fodya and Maliyano were granted a court bail of K100 000 by the Lilongwe Magistrate Court and are yet to be tried for their corruption and abuse of office charges respectively.