The Malawi Government and South African Labour Recruiters, 1974–92

Abstract

In April 1974, 74 Malawian migrant labourers returning from work in South Africa died in a plane crash in Francistown, Botswana. Immediately, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the then [Life] President of Malawi, banned all labour recruiting activities in his country. Miners on holiday were not allowed to go back to their jobs, and those under contract with the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA), known as Wenela, were to be repatriated — a decision that cost the South African mining industry some R7 million during the next two years. Thereafter, Dr Banda frequently boasted that ‘I have killed Wenela’, as for example on two public occasions in 1983: I have killed two recruiting agencies, the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, Wenela, in short, and the Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau, or Mthandii… They no longer recruit in Malawi. They have surrendered all their buildings to the government…, because the majority of the people have responded to my appeal to stay here and work in their gardens or on the estates.