Malawians deserve better than fake promises

Now that politicians have gone into overdrive campaigning to be the next to steal and loot at the expense of poor Malawians or doing everything possible to continue stealing, what should not leave the minds of the voters is what former president Bakili Muluzi once said, during a campaign stop, that Malawians forget easily.

This week, 2019 voters were reminded that all politicians care about is garnering votes prior to elections not their welfare when the government announced the launch of construction of a road which it turns out was previously launched in 2013 by the former president Joyce Banda.

In the five years since the launch, little has been done on the road.

In the meantime, the people of Lirangwe in Blantyre, Chingale in Zomba and Machinga have had legislators who put development before law making promising that the road would be constructed.

It is even more absurd for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to blame People’s Party (PP) for not completing the road when it was launched in 2013, considering that a mere few months later it was the DPP that was in power and with all the resources to resume where the project ended.

Several other road projects have stalled over the years but it has taken the coming elections and the possibility of a DPP loss and one Minister of Transport trying to be seen to be working for them to be revived. The Lumbadzi-Dowa-Chezi and Zomba-Jali-Phalombe-Chitakale Roads come to mind.

The rush to be seen to be working has been so badly executed that promises of constructing certain roads have been disclosed even when there is no funding or even a credible source of such funding to even lay a foundation.

It is highly doubtful that after waiting for 50 years, the people of Rumphi-Hewe, the gateway to Nyika National Park and Vwaza Game Reserve, can believe the lie that the road upgrades will start anytime in the next five years.

A government reeling under massive domestic debts and an unmanageable budget deficit taking on funding for roads such as the Njakwa-Livingstonia Road and completion of Jenda-Edingeni Road is laughable and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

We should expect to see more of such absurdity as the parties jostle for votes but Malawians would do well to remember that all this canvassing is not in their interest but that of selfish politicians who plan to line their pockets with tenders.

The nation once had the Youth Development Fund (Yedef) as it came to be known and the end result was billions in loans and plant equipment lost to individuals who had zero business acumen except the expertise in applying blue body paint and hoisting placards at political rallies.

The Malawi Enterprise Development Fund (Medef) has a K6 billion bill on its shoulders after the administration that developed the otherwise well-intentioned programme abused it and influenced its officials to disburse loans to its political cronies.

Malawians deserve better than the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp) that is just a tool to dupe poor subsistence farmers that the government cares for them, as Minister of Finance Goodall Gondwe confirmed this week what the nation has known all along.

The good intentions for which Fisp was established came to an end after less than two harvests. Since then, Fisp is a programme that enriches seed producers and fertiliser transporters while impoverishing farmers who cannot harvest enough maize to feed them even for a year.

This is a government so disorganised and happy when its own citizens extend begging bowls for grains every year, forcing the majority of Malawians to be grateful when it’s the same government that messed up the agricultural system putting them in the vulnerable position they find themselves in year after year.

Malawians should not clap hands and handover votes for the community technical colleges which are merely a glorified rebranded Malawi Young Pioneers project. Malawians should only vote for DPP when the millions of unemployed youths are off the streets and can employ others.

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