The story of Samson Kalikokha
Samson Kalikokha is a living example of the misery that the theft and fraud at the Administrator General’s office can cause to lives of orphans who could have benefitted from deceaseds’ estate.
The young man, currently hosted by a relative in Blantyre’s Chirimba Township since 2014, last week recounted the ordeal that his family has gone through since 2004 when they lost their breadwinner, Gibson Kalikokha.
He told Weekend Nation of the struggles the family has endured in a desperate bid to claim funds from his father’s deceased estate.
He said his mother has been to the Administrator General’s office several times but her visits have failed to yield results, hence eroding hope besides plunging her into more debts for money she was using for transport from Nsanje to Blantyre and back.
Since June 2014, the young Kalikokha has been hopping from one place to another within the city of Blantyre in search for shelter and food from relatives. Once in a while he still goes to the Administrator General’s office on behalf of his weak mother and four siblings at home in Nsanje whose lives have gone from bad to worse since the demise of their breadwinner.
From a young man aspiring to be a teacher like his father, Samson—who dropped out of school in Form 3 due to lack of fees— today sits on the roadside in the sweltering sun in Chirimba Township selling water packed in plastics and snacks to make some money.
He said from about K10 000 he makes in a month, he sends something to his mother and sisters at Bangula in Nsanje where they are still waiting that someday, maybe a miracle will happen and they will get the money.
“The fact that I had to leave home to come to Blantyre in search for the payment should tell you how desperate we are for financial support. My mother does not have a house of her own so she and my four sisters are currently living in a rented grass thatched a house and it is very difficult to sustain life. We struggle to get food on a daily basis. Sometimes we only manage one meal per day. No wonder it has been difficult for a widow to keep us in school.
“I dropped out of school in 2012 and three of my sisters followed suit, two of them in forms two and one in form one, respectively. After getting married at the ages of 17 and 15, respectively, two of my sisters have come back from wrecked marriages with no hope, no skills but adding a burden to a family already stretched to the limit financially.”
The amount that is registered for the Kalikokha’s file at the Administrator General’s office is K134 000. At the then exchange rate of K109 to one US dollar in 2004, this translates to K942 000 now. The K134 000 puts to question the effectiveness of the said money in terms of its current value.
He added that it would require a lot of support to put back the family of a former teacher who emphasised the importance of education to his children who are now on the verge of hopelessness following the theft of the deceased estate.
“After our father died, we settled at our paternal grandparents’ home. But after a few months we were sent packing. His relatives said culturally our mother was being released to settle with her people. That was in 2005. My mother then went job hunting and landed one at an orphanage as a cleaner. She now gets about K15 000 a month.
‘‘That is when she started following up on the gratuity money. But years passed and there was nothing coming out until 2008 when the unfortunate happened. She was told that the money was lost at the Administrator General’s office,” he said. n
