Fired Reserve Bank boss ducks journalists
The writing was on the wall but the former Reserve Bank of Malawi Governor Dr Perks Ligoya is still trying to come to terms with the reality that he has painfully parted ways with his extravagance life at the country’s central bank.
President Joyce Banda on Tuesday replaced Ligoya with an international public servant and one of Malawi’s top monetary economists Charles Chuka, who until his appointment was Chief Executive Officer of Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL).
Perhaps not believing the news, since his ‘dismissal’ from the RBM he has been refusing to grant interviews to the media for his reaction over the development.
Unlike all his friends who willingly reacted to their predicaments such as Bright Malopa, CEO of Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, Peter Mukhito, the Inspector General of Police (who was the first casualty) and Information and Civic Education Minister Patricia Kaliati, Ligoya vehemently refused to talk to journalists for reasons best known to himself.
“No, I am not talking to journalists, thank you,” Ligoya told one reporter from a local radio before cutting the line after the subject had just been introduced.
A number of reporters from various media houses were also told the same while others were not even responded to after introducing the subject.
The former RBM Governor, a true sympathiser of late President Bingu wa Mutharika and the then ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) provoked public admonition last year a local newspaper reported that the bank was constructing for him a K43 million swimming pool at his Area 43 residence in Lilongwe.
Ligoya, further attracted public anger when he gave contradictory statements on how much Malawi Government was benefiting from the controversial Kayerekera Uranium Mining in Karonga.
The fired RBM chief, whose leadership was also criticised for the exaggerated exchange rate of the kwacha that worsened Malawi’s economic situation, was hired by late President Mutharika in 2009 after controversially firing Victor Mbewe after he refused to venture into shady deals with him.
His successor, Chuka, is no stranger to RBM after he first joined it in 1979 and worked in various capacities in different departments before being promoted to general manager for its Economic Services Department.
Chuka later left for the World Bank in Washington DC in USA where he worked as a senior advisor to the Executive Director representing 22 of the 46 sub Saharan African countries in the bank’s boards.
The new RBM boss holds a Master of Philosophy in Monetary Economics from the University of Glasgow in Scotland and a Bachelors Degree in Socio Sciences (Economics and Sociology) from Chancellor College, the University of Malawi.
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