By IOMMIE CHIWALO
The Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) describes as unacceptable the conduct of foreign nationals who are corruptly taking up Malawian job
opportunities and enslave local employees including abusing them sexually.
The remarks by CDEDI Executive Director Sylvester Namiwa come after an indisputable evidence from worker from Shayona company decided to spill the beans as a result of being fed up with the conduct of his superiors who tried their best to conceal the odeal after a series of complaints.
Namiwa has since called for an immediate action from law enforcement agencies including the police saying failure to do so his organisation and well meaning Malawians will be forced to hold peaceful demonstrations against Mr. Patel and his management.
He has also appealed to Malawians who are forced to working in derogatory environments or are abused in any way by their foreign masters to report the same to relevant authorities, with copies to CDEDI, saying Malawi is the only country we have as our home and foreigners to come to live with us must treat us with the respect we deserve.
The Shayona Cement Managing Director (MD) confirmed to have suspended Dalwad after learning about the shocking video and that Dalwad later fled the country for India
through Kamuzu International Airport on Tuesday March 21, 2024.
The conduct of Patel took CDEDI by surprise forcing its leadership to quiz him as to why opting for suspending Jayesh instead of reporting him to police.
Namiwa has since wrote the Inspector General (IG) of Malawi Police Service Merlyn Yolamu to engage Patel for information that can lead to Jayesh Dalwad’s arrest so that he can be tried in Malawi for the crimes he committed.
Meanwhile, CDEDI is demanding that Patel should cooperate with the Malawi Police Service to ensure that Jayesh Dalwad faces the law on both allegations and on behalf of Jayesh Dalwad, whom he brought in the country and employed, publicly apologise to the affected individuals, their families and Malawians in general.
“We are also calling him to liaise with relevant line ministries, notably ministries of Gender and Labour to devise a mechanism to ensure that the people that Jayesh Dalwad sexually abused are assisted to fully recover from the trauma inflicted on them. This includes compensating the concerned employees,” he said.
Patel has also been requested to demonstrate that the law was followed to the letter in the recruitment of Mr. Jayesh Dalwad and all other foreign nationals employed by Shayona Cement Corporation.
The step by CDEDI was after analyzing two complaints linked to one Jayesh Kumar Dalwad, who was working as an assistant manager at Shayona Cement Corporation at Kanengo in Lilongwe.
Namiwa disclosed that barely hours after his organisation appealed to Malawians to report suspected cases of tax injustices that are rampant in companies that have foreign connections, CDEDI
received a dossier containing letters and a 17:26 minutes video showing disgusting abuse of power by an employer of foreign nationality.
“In the video, a
male house-keeper (name withheld) is being forced to caress his male boss’s private parts.
It should be put on record that this disheartening video was recorded as proof of the dehumanising acts the housekeeper was subjected to every morning, Monday through Saturday, as a condition to keep his job” he disclosed.
CDEDI also received from a female employee at the same company claims of rape linked to the same manager. According to a letter reference number
SLHR/2024/04/28 dated March 28, 2024 under the headline ‘Closure of an
issue reported verbally to Human Resources Department’ signed by one Luke Dzimbiri, Human Resource (HR) Supervisor at Shayona Cement Corporation
Kanengo.
“Regrettably, the innocent female worker’s complaint was simply
wished-away in the pretext that the suspect had bolted, and that the matter was not reported to management soon enough,”
