I got some information a few years ago to the effect that he started his journey to economic prominence with cattle rearing, slaughtering them and selling the beef. I have never verified this but whatever it is that launched Mr. Khondowe into the sparsely populated league of Malawian well to do people must have been close to insignificant, perhaps more so than rearing cattle. The cattle story sounds genuine though, if we are guided by the naming of the project he initiated at the Centre in Lilongwe, namely the multi-storey Kang’ombe Building.
Mr. Khondowe was no ordinary individual. He belonged to the same club as Robert Mugabe. Like Khondowe, Mugabe also erected a tall building in the centre of Harare and called it Karigamombe, which was another reference to cattle. Cattle must have separately played a very important role in making these men rise to high echelons of wealth. The only difference between them is that while one clung to politics the other remained a private individual throughout his life. Mr. Khondowe died last week as a private citizen.
His being a private citizen did not preclude him from contributing to national development. He was deeply generous too. He gave a lot to the church and, I would believe, to individuals too. He would build a whole church, complete with the pastor’s house by himself. Not just once did he do this, but it was his lifestyle. Many a congregation have benefited from his benevolence.
What is more, Mr. Khondowe was a model to a number of businessmen from Dowa who also rose to economic prominence. These included late Mr. Chibwana and late Mr. Chimbeleko. A healthy and innocuous competition raged among these Dowa greats. When Khondowe constructed a hotel in Lilongwe and called it Kalikuti (where is it?), Chimbeleko responded by constructing a leisure centre at Mponela, calling it Kalipena (it is somewhere). More recently, another Dowa magnate, Napoleon Dzombe has constructed a hotel at his home near Madisi and has called it Kalipano (it is here).
By embarking on the Kang’ombe Building, Khondowe demonstrated that he was willing to take on projects of gigantic proportions. The building, honestly, changed the skyline of Lilongwe City to make it look modern. It is remarkable that such a building would have been the product of a private individual in a culture that expects such projects to be the exclusive preoccupation of Government.
With the exception of dwelling units, buildings in our cities are seldom owned by Malawians. It does not even begin to cross people’s minds that indigenous individuals can own business properties. Somehow we believe that only those from very wealthy backgrounds can afford to do that. Khondowe was not from such a background. He started small but was smart. I would not be surprised if I was told that he started with someone else’s cattle rather than his own. It is not what you have that matters but what your dream is like.
I shared a house with some Kenyans during my student days in Watford, UK. One of them was called Ken Karume and the other Wainaina Kairo. I was attending college under the sponsorship of my employers and I assumed that it was the same with my Kenyan colleagues. When I enquired, I was told they were both sponsored by their families. The father of one owned a hotel in Nairobi. I cannot remember the type of business that the father of the other was in but the two opened my eyes to the possibility of Africans running businesses on equal terms with their European or Asian counterparts. This was in the 1980s during which time it was considered abnormal in Malawi for anybody with a reasonably high level of education to go into business. Those who went into business had a limited range of choices. They either became retailers or transporters, farmers or maize mill owners. It was not traditional to expect a Malawian to run a business fancier than these. The notable exception to this were the learned legal citizens, some of who ran legal companies. It was not so with Kenyans. They owned high profile businesses back then. They are even more diversified now.
Kenyans own Kenya to a much higher degree than Malawians own Malawi. You can hardly point to a Malawian owned property in central business districts of our cities. Nairobi is different. Many buildings in the centre of town belong to Kenyans.
Khondowe was among the first Malawians to show us that we can own our towns and cities. It is up to us to emulate him and continue his legacy. Fare thee well, Mr. Khondowe.