The pressure on President Lazarus Chakwera to fire Immigration Chief, Retired Brigadier General Charles Kalomo, has intensified, with a group called Malawi First giving him a 24-hour ultimatum to do so.
This comes on the heels of a 10-day ultimatum issued by senior immigration officers last week, which expires on Thursday.
Malawi First President, Bon Kalindo, addressed reporters on Monday, stating that if Chakwera fails to fire Kalomo by tomorrow, they will mobilize Malawians to join immigration officers in a nationwide shutdown on Thursday.
Kalindo accused Kalomo of failing to demonstrate leadership, resulting in Malawians suffering under his watch.
The senior immigration officers, who met with Secretary for Homeland Security Erica Maganga on Monday, reiterated their demands for Kalomo’s resignation or dismissal, citing unfair dismissals, poor working conditions and maladministration under his leadership.
They claim that at least 40 officers have faced unfair dismissals, which the parent ministry is unaware of.
At Malawi Immigration and Citizenship department Brigadier Kalumo has cleaned up corruption officers who have been benefitting by getting kickbacks from passport applicants for a long time on top on Norma fees. Chakwera appointed Kalumo to clean up the corruption at the department.
These so called senior officers complaining of Kalumo are part of the syndrome that feels frustrated by not benefitting from passport applications fees on top of bribes and kickbacks that has now stopped.
It’s not Kalumo who is failing the Immigration department its the senior officers and junior officers who have downed tools in order to frustrate Kalumo and make him a bad Director General.
General Kalumo is a corrupt free military General who is just strong and straight forward administrative officer at the top of his game. He is a nonsense officer.
Chakwera must support Kalumo by increasing more deployment of military officers at Immigration to protect Kalumo who is being threatened by useless civil activists sent by stupid politicians who don’t understand what is happening at Immigration department.