Of snakes and defamation

Hon. Folks, APM has pulled a first on two fronts in the past few weeks but I doubt his overtures have yielded the intended outcomes.

There’s no denying the man has hit the road big time on the so-called developmental rallies which are in effect partisan DPP meetings conducted at the expense of the taxpayer.

All the past presidents since 1994—Bakili Muluzi, Bingu wa Mutharika and Joyce Banda—used the trick to train MBC microphones and later television cameras on themselves and their party, burning thousands of litres of fuel in government vehicles or helicopters used on local travel and spending billions of kwacha of government money on security, accommodation and allowances.

It’s a practice we’ve lived the past 21 years to know it can only be pursued at the expense of public service delivery. But does it help the cause of national development?

We’d have already become the land of milk and honey envisaged in Vision 2020 by now. Instead, we’re not only entrapped in the group of the world’s poorest but harder though we’ve tried, there just doesn’t seem to be light at the end of the tunnel. Our story is riddled in the mediocre pattern of making one step forward then two steps backwards.

I guess this is why APM initially thought he could do things differently, cutting on domestic travel and trying to move the country forward by engaging leaders on both sides of the political divide, business captains as well as traditional and civil society leaders as change agents.

Without the wherewithal to change the mindset it turned out to be wishful thinking. DPP is very much on its own in the cockpit with everybody else screaming and cursing at every bump we hit in our turbulent flight.

But the one thing that APM’s development rallies have helped to highlight is the rot even within the ruling side. While UDF MPs left their leader in Parliament alone on the opposition benches and went to throw their weight behind DPP MPs, we’ve heard Vice-President Saulos Chilima warn that there are “snakes” among those welcomed into the DPP camp.

How I wish I had the discernment of biblical Joseph to interpret for APM what that means!

The decision to sue lawyer Allan Ntata for defamation is another first for APM.

Ntata, who was legal advisor to the late president, BinguwaMutharika, appears to have stepped on the lion’s tail by allegedly dragging APM as a beneficiary of the K92 billion suspected to have evaporated from Account Number 1 on his elder brother’s watch.

There’s no denying that APM is only exercising his right by seeking redress in the courts against Ntata.

Interestingly, in these days of social media, the world is now aware of the development and, in light of Cashgate and other cases of corruption some of which involve leaders at the highest level, the case just might whet the appetite of the world to give Ntata a keen listening ear.

I wonder whether all this was taken into consideration when APM decided to sue for defamation, a case which, even if it went against Ntata, would not necessarily exonerate APM in the court of public opinion.

In defamation, the complainant doesn’t have to prove their innocence. All they do is state that the statement is false and disparaging. The burden lies with the defendant to establish in court the veracity of their claim.

What this means is that even if the allegation is true, if the defendant is unable to back it with evidence to the satisfaction of the presiding judge, the judgement would go against them.

APM is probably in the most awkward position to probe the financial scams of the past 10 years. Some of them, including the K92 billion scam which a German-funded audit has shown to be much, much bigger at K577 billion, happened not just on the watch of his brother, Bingu, but also in a government where APM himself was a member of Cabinet.

Not only that. There is also the controversy surrounding Bingu’s own wealth which valuers put at over K60 billion at the former president’s death, eight years after assuming the presidency.

Was it an exaggeration? Could the real value be only K30 billion or even K15 billion? Whatever is the true value, Malawians and probably the rest of the world, would like to know what exactly it was and how it was built on the K150 million assets declared when Bingu assumed office.

And being the President, APM won’t be serving the public interest by ignoring what is already in the public domain. He has to win trust by probing and acting on cases of possible fraud and corruption of the past and that includes the eight years his own brother was at the helm.