Seodi's bye

 

On September 23, 2020, Government terminated the contracts of Chief Director responsible for Public Sector Reforms Seodi White, Director of Information in the Ministry of Information Mzati Nkolokosa and his deputy Deogratius M'mana.

In a media interview on Wednesday, Minister of Information Gospel Kazako confirmed the development and said the appointments of the three had been irregular.

Kazako said the dismissals were not witch-hunting but were meant to realign the Public Service towards delivering the development that the country needs to inch forward.

He warned of more job terminations for those who secured employment in the Public Service via the back door that was political party colours.

But reacting to her departure, White, never shy of media attention took to social media to say good bye. What I liked about her way of stepping off the scene is her effort to ensure what she claimed she had achieved was not lost to the banter around her firing.

You see social media has given everyone some sort of opportunity to control their narrative and be in the driving seat of what people say about them.

So here is what Seodi said: “It’s been a great experience, you grow as a leader as a professional…I’m glad it’s coming to an end at this time because sometimes there's also a danger of overstaying in government and then you become just government.

“What I found was that the issue of accountability and performance was not monitored. You found that the ones who actually worked were those who wanted to and those who didn’t feel like it didn’t. We’ve tried to change all that, we created the Malawi Public Service management policy and now we’ve created a draft public sector bill which entails better accountability and performance and more efficiency.” 

She went on to urge citizens not to believe that their destiny would be changed by politicians but rather that it is a strong civil service that will help politicians effectively deliver on those promises.

I do to an extent agree with her, we have grown accustomed to the idea that someone will come and change things for us, while we watch things go haywire. 

Our craving for a Messiah will kill us.

Look at how most of us watched as government resources were plundered by the DPP government and never uttered a word, here were are now overwhelming the Anti-Corruption Bureau! 

Back to Seodi White. She was a prominent women's legal rights activist before she joined the Public Service.

Her social media post in which she appeared to denigrade Vice President Saulos Chilima who led the reforms under former president Peter Mutharika but was later relieved of the responsibility courted controversy. It led some to speculate that she would be fired immediately Chilima took over the reforms agenda again, this time under the Tonse Alliance administration. Well the new administration took their time. Kukhala ngati alibe befu, they found a good way to kick her out and now she is on the kerb, but may be not for long.

White also led a march in support of embattled Malawi Electoral Commisson chairperson Justice Jane Ansah in which she called on women to rally behind the Supreme Court judge at a time Human Rights activists were demanding her resignation.

The march was heavily criticised, of course the denigration of women is wrong, but were the marches attacking her because she was a woman or because she, I'm talking Jane Ansah messed up the elections?