By Patson Chilemba
Domestic arguments involving Zambia’s High Commissioner Frank Bwalya and his wife Joyce on one side and the Zambian female-chef employed at their residence has attracted the involvement of the Australian government.
Well placed sources familiar with the matter told Daily Revelation that there have been serious issues involving the Bwalya’s and the Zambian lady, only known as bana Chanda, who is employed by the Zambian government and attached to High Commissioner as chef at the envoy’s residence.
Sources said the main assertion is that High Commissioner Bwalya’s wife, Joyce Nkunika has not been treating Bana Chanda well.
Sources said the alleged mistreatment eventually led to the termination of employment of their worker.
Sources said since Joyce joined High Commissioner Bwalya, the Chef has been complaining about her welfare and her being fired from employment broke the camel’s back.
Sources added that the loss of her employment plus the mistreatment compounded the misery the chef was going through, which she is not taking kindly.
Daily Revelation understands that because of the nature of the arguments and her firing, forced High Commissioner Bwalya’s chef to complain to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). DFAT is a government department (Ministry) that looks into the affairs of diplomats and is responsible for issuing visas to them.
The Department has taken the matter seriously, particularly that the chef was fired and expelled from the residence and was therefore being taken care of by the Australian government. The intervention is being handled by DFAT director for communications David Geyer, and has involved High Commissioner Bwalya and the chef who have been leveling counter allegations against each other. The head of administration at the Zambian Mission in Australia, Alick Banda has also been part of the meetings, but refused to comment on the matter when contacted by Daily Revelation.
However, when contacted by Daily Revelation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Dr Ronald Simwinga said the Ministry was not aware about the matter but had asked High Commissioner Bwalya to give his side of the story
“Now this is what happened like I told you yesterday I was being very frank, I wasn’t aware and nobody was aware at the office so we have asked Frank, High Commissioner Frank to give his version of story because we cannot write what we don’t know. You get my point? So we have said look we have received this query so what is it about?” Dr Simwinga said. “Because he has never logged in with us that there was a problem. So for us as far as our records are concerned the status quo should have been the case. So according to our records the lady is working at the house and there is no problem because there is no report of any.”
He said as far as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was concerned, the chef, according to the records of the Ministry, was still on the books of the Mission.
Asked if the Ministry had also attempted to get in touch with the Australian government over the matter, Dr Simwinga said the Ministry could not get in touch with the Australian government directly as there was an Embassy there already, but the Ministry had already made arrangements with the Zambian Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe to get in touch with the Australian Embassy there so that they could get in touch with their government (as per diplomatic communication channel and protocol).
On the final query made to Dr Simwinga as a follow up on the query regarding the matter, the permanent jokingly said: “I report to you eh? It’s like you are telling a junior that I have been waiting for that file, how come you are not bringing it? That’s how you press people are powerful eh you can make the PS jump.” – Daily Revelation