Kondwani Nyondo

By Kondwani Nyondo  When the Kamilang’ombe Bridge in Nthalire, Chitipa, caved in last week — leaving a Toyota Land Cruiser carrying ten People’s Party campaign members dangling over the edge — the near-tragedy pulled the lid off a deeper scandal. Our investigation has established that the bridge, valued at K167 million and barely a month old, was not only substandard but was also suspiciously constructed at night, away from the community’s watchful eyes. A Rescue That Took Hours The collapse sparked a desperate rescue. Villagers rushed to save the trapped team, sliding logs and shoveling sand beneath the teetering vehicle until it was finally dragged back to safety. Prisca Yapereka Kayira, one of those trapped, recalls: "Just as we were about to cross, the slab caved in. We thought we would die. It took hours of villagers working with bare hands to save us." Signs of Negligence What happened at Kamilang’ombe was no accident. Our investigation revealed that cracks had already ...

  Illegal Gold Mining Drains Kasungu Communities, Exposes Regulatory Gaps By Kondwani Nyondo, Kasungu A fast-growing illegal gold mining industry in Kasungu’s Chimbiya area is leaving communities poorer, landless, and exposed to severe health risks, an investigation has revealed. At Gogode, about 39 kilometres from the M1 Road, a mill locally known as Chigayo cha Golide grinds tonnes of soil every day. The facility, operated under Sahava Investments, is the epicentre of unregulated mining activities that stretch across sites such as Siliuka. Exploitation in the Pits Villagers, including women and children, are working in open pits without safety measures, often sleeping near shafts that collapse without warning. Many dig blindly without knowing whether the soil holds any gold. “Sometimes we crush two or three tonnes, and there’s nothing. But the costs must still be paid,” said Halod Bisalomu, a dealer overseeing the mill. Milling one tonne of soil costs K60,000. Renting equipment s...

  K50, 000 but now the same fetches between K390, 000 to K400, 000 according to official reports.    It is this incentive that has motivated the risky gold mining in places such as Kasungu.    Chairperson for Civil Society Network in Kasungu Braxton Banda is worried that authorities are paying a blind eye to this catastrophe.    “We have registered our concerns to the council. Unfortunately mining activities are yet to be decentralised. We are planning a mining indaba to resolve these issues” said Banda.    According to the Annual Economic Report (2025) apart from Kasungu the other hotspots for informal gold mining are; Balaka, Neno (Lisungwi), Machinga (Nsanama), Mangochi (Makanjira), Nkhatabay (Tukombo), and Nkhotakota (Bowa, Dwangwa and surrounding areas).     In the 2025/26 budget statement minister of finance indicated that gold miners are one of the target groups for the government’s formalisation drive.    In a writ...

Illegal land deal at Magwero -Questions over governance and transparency By Kondwani Nyondo The controversial transfer of over 417 hectares of prime industrial land at Area 55, also known as Magwero Industrial Park, has ignited serious concerns about governance, legality, and the erosion of public trust in Malawi’s investment institutions. Originally designated for industrial development under the mandate of the Malawi Investment and Trade Centre (MITC), this large parcel of land in the capital city was expected to attract investors under transparent and legally compliant procedures.  However, internal sources reveal a shadowy deal involving the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC), a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), and an Indian company, ARISE, which has majority ownership in the SPV. According to docoments in our position, legal opinions obtained from the Attorney General’s office and private legal firm Mbendera and Nkhono Associates, the transfer of the land to the SPV wi...

Easy to find new person,not easy to find real one By Kondwani Nyondo  You can replace anyone. It's not hard to find a new person.  But to find a real person? That's a different affair The person who stood by you when you were at your lowest, who believed in you when your dreams were just dreams, who picked you up when you dropped, and who straightened your crown before the world knew it was crooked—that kind of person can not be replaced.  Charm and chemistry are easy to find. Sexy body and steamy nights are not a challenge to come by. But a heart that believes and a soul that stands the test of time are as rare as gold. Most people don't fail in life because they never met the love of their life but because they met them and mistreated them.  A true soulmate is not easy to be with because they need you to walk in truth and live up to your potential. They don't support you when you're losing yourself and straying.  There's an opportunity cost to being with a tru...

 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is gone, but his words still speak By Kondwani Nyondo In African literature classrooms from Nairobi to Lilongwe, generations of students have turned the dog-eared pages of Weep Not, Child and Petals of Blood under the dim glow of campus bulbs.  Now, with the passing of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o at age 87, Africa has not merely lost a novelist—it will be burying a rebellion bound in pages, a resistance inked in Gikuyu and English, in pain and pride.  Born James Ngugi in 1938 during Kenya’s colonial shadows, he would one day renounce both the language and the name forced upon him. In doing so, he birthed Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o—not just a name, but a literary fist raised against the empire.  In Malawi, long before literary festivals found room for his name on their programs, Ngũgĩ was already at home in classrooms. His novels—Weep Not, Child, The River Between, A Grain of Wheat, Petals of Blood—were staples in secondary school English literature syllabi.  His...

 Letter to my daughter By Kondwani Nyondo Dear Amry, When I saw your name on Facebook, after twenty years it was like hearing a song I had long forgotten how to hum. You wrote: "I am looking for my father. If anyone knew Bapapi tell him, I still love him." This message hit me like thunder. For years, I stayed off Facebook. Not because I didn’t care, but because it became too painful to see what the world was doing without me in it. And now, there you were. Grown. Searching. And still calling me Bapapi the name your mother NyaNjolwa gave me. You may not remember much the day your mother walked away with you. But I do. On this day I remembered the words of NyaSoko your grandmother at Mtende in the village. At every visit she used to warn us “in the village even the way a man coughs can land him in hot soup.” Judi, young and curvier woman used to come to my butchery almost every day to buy pork. Not that she loved it herself but her father, Gilbert, who would not let two days ...