Macra boss Itaye panics over stinking rot: Blows K20m on junior staff retreat at Hapuwani

Beleaguered Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (Macra) Director General Godfrey Itaye is in a panic mode as Nyasa Times understands that he has sent all his junior staff to a retreat in Mulanje where they will pocket allowances amounting to K12.9 million.

Nyasa  Times can reveal that all Macra junior staff have left Friday)for Hapuwani Lodge in Mulanje and will be there till Sunday but will collect allowances for four nights.

The junior staff from Grade M5 are 75 in total and will be getting K43,000 per day translating to K172,000 for the four nights allowances.

“They are going there under the disguise of ‘Macra Service Charter’ training but there is nothing like Macra service charter training. Our boss is clearly in a panic mode, he is looking for sympathy,” said an inside source at Macra.

This means the 75 junior staff will share a cool K12.9 million in allowances.

“The standard practice is that these people will not sleep there, they will be transported in rented coasters to and from Hapuwani from today to Sunday but they will be given allowances equivalent to four nights,” said the source.

Sources said the bill will hit K20 million as a result of the food and teas and also transportation of staff and other logistics.

“If this is not looting, then tell me what it is,” wondered one staff member.

This training is coming just a few days before the country goes to the watershed May 21 elections and there are fears that the retreat is to soften the junior staff to carry out some unorthodox instructions they may be given by Itaye during the elections period.

Macra is responsible for regulating communication and there are fears that it can order shutdown of some radio stations and even social media sites under the new “Cyber Transactions’ law.

Itaye is never short of controversy at Macra as he is implicated in corruption scandals at Macra worth millions of Kwachas but has been spared prosecution due to his political connections to the ruling party.