Part 2.
Here we go.
As a maid center, you give a client a maid, then she rocks
up at one of your centers claiming to have been fired, drops some bags and goes
away. You are not bothered.
You still have contacts to your client. As a
business, isn't it in your best interests to contact your client to try and
learn what went wrong? Why was she fired? Does the client need another maid? Is
it to do with something that you do not teach in your curriculum to prepare
these maids? Anything, just any question you can ask yourselves.
Granted maids
get fired often, but as professionals running a business registered with PACRA,
and maybe possibly being regulated by some body, where is your sense of
responsibility?
Okay fine, let's assume she was fired. Doesn't someone rocking
up and leaving things and going back not ring a bell?
The worst part. You
haven't asked any questions, 2 or 3 days later your client calls you and informs
you that this person has run away and right now she has been reported to Police
for theft. You actually confirm that the same person has been to one of your
premises claiming to have been fired and is currently up for the next client
(edit to read victim).
The very next day a new prospective client gets in touch
with you and without a wink she is included as one of the available maids.
Wow.
Just wow. Not a chance.
Anyway the narration continues from where part 1 ended.
So on the morning of Saturday 6th July 2024, my wife's friend got in touch with
the maid center looking for a maid, and she was given a list of available maids
and among them Bridget Mwanza aged 27. With her picture to go with.
Wait 27?
Three months ago when she was given to us, she was 22. Three months later she is
27. Just how?
The age lies aside, but why is someone reported to a maid center
for theft and only missed police detention by a whisker of technicality, still
active on queue for 'deployment' to another home?
 |
| Screen shot of the initial picture and text sent by the center |
The officer in charge asked us to go
there ask the maid center people to search her bags as we look on. When we got
to the maid center, we were informed that Bridget had gone to Salama Park where
her sister lived and she carried a bag and a plastic. She also had gone to buy a
new bag earlier.
So we informed the person in charge there about what had
transpired. I demanded to speak to the proprietor. She called someone, but it
wasn't the proprietor, instead in was another lady manning the other subsidiary
in Vorna Valley. She put her on loud speaker. The lady from Vorna Valley spoke
about her surprise to see Bridget in their groups being put as available since
Wednesday. She had not head anything from the client about that. Then more
surprised about the police case when she was called by my wife while at the
police.
At this point, I realized we were not making progress so again I asked
that the proprietor be called. Once she was called, my wife spoke first and
queried her as to why Bridget was being made available with a pending police
issue. Her response was that she was put up as available on the basis that she
went back claiming to have been fired.
I interjected and asked her why after the
police issue the previous day the same maid was still advertised. Their answer
was still because Bridget went to claim she was fired. I realized that we weren't making any
progress, so I told them we had just come from the police and they asked us to
ask them to conduct a search on the belongings for Bridget. The proprietor
agreed and asked her employee to oblige and carry out the search.
"Martha, baleke ba client ba seche (sic), chosani ma bag
yake," she said, as I interjected to tell them that they conduct the search
themselves as we just look on.
The search was swiftly performed and none of our belongings were found. But something else telling had happened. Bridget had left much earlier with other bags and claimed to
have headed to Salama Park.
Fortunate enough, after a month with us, my wife had
released Bridget for a weekend and she insisted on dropping her where she would be going. It was indeed in Salama Park at an unfinished house where it seemed
someone living there was a caretaker. My wife couldn't forget the house as a
niece of ours lives just in the next street.
So we followed to Salama Park. When we
got there, a girl in her early 20's came out and denied knowing anyone called
Bridget Mwanza. A man who claimed to have been visiting was sat down and said he
too didn't know any Bridget. We asked for the person that lived there and we
were told she was having her lunch but would come as soon as they were done with their meal.
Few minutes later a lady who we assumed works for one of the retail chain stores came out wearing a T-shit for the
store. In fact, Bridget had once told my wife a story that her brother in law runs the said chain store. Once we asked her about Bridget the lady agreed to knowing her, that she was her sister, but said she
had not seen her in over a year. The last part shocked my wife. This is the same
place she had dropped Bridget at. Bridget had even greeted the kids by
name, as soon as she had disembarked from the car. The lady even agreed to the mentioned names of the children as the actual names of her children, but still claimed to have never seen Bridget. Not that day on 6th July, not any
other day in the last 6 months but more than a year ago.
We were in shock
because while Bridget lived with us the last 3 months, she had been released more than twice to go and visit her family over weekends and each time she claimed to have gone to Salama
Park at her sister's place. My wife even dropping her once. At this
point, the sister said maybe as soon as she was dropped she set off for her
other sister in "Libala". She placed a call to her other sister whom we could hear saying she had not seen Bridget for about a year equally but suddenly turned up that morning. The 2nd sister
requested that we be put on the call. As soon as my wife started to explain that
Bridget worked as a domestic worker at our home and had just run off the previous day, the sister asked,
"what did she take?"
"Perfume and phones," my wife replied.
The sister without
wasting time just stated, "bwelani viliko". Apparently Bridget turned up there
earlier after not being seen for a long time and she arrived with a plastic full
of items among them phones, tablet, branded clothes for the company I work for, and shoes among other things.
Look out for part 3.
In part 3, I narrate how we
eventually recovered some of the items, meeting the sister and her husband and
the chat we had with them. How they told us about her previous thefts from
several places including one for household goods including a plasma TV set that
got her arrested and sentenced to jail where she served time. They also narrated
to us about how alias, Mary Nonde, an identity she stole from someone and had an
NRC done in that name and even store grade 12 school results for the same and
was using those 6 points results to get jobs in that name.
Part 3 is perhaps the
most 'jaw dropping' because it is quite graphic and very detailed. From how some of
the items were recovered to how we then got her now arrested and detained. And
most importantly how I link the maid center in perpetuating these crimes. The
proprietor of the maid center was on the way to the police when I started typing
parts 1 and 2 on my phone while seated at the police station as my wife was giving her statement. I left the station with my wife, went to bed, and at some point lost sleep and started to type part 3. Part 3 is done she hasn't yet arrived. If I pick anything from
her in our one on one interaction, I will probably do a part 4.
For now look out
for the final and most shocking part 3. The recovery and eventual arrest of
Bridget the Nanny and her litany of past crimes.
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