‘Aid is not charity’
In this interview EPHRAIM NYONDO engages governance and development specialist Dr Henry Chingaipe on cashgate, development partners withholding budgetary support and its impact on national development.
Q:
Revelations have been made on cashgate. Government has come up with measures to arrest the situation. And when donors said they are withholding their budgetary support, what was your immediate reaction?
A:
I had expected the suspension of aid by the donors in the Common Approach to Budgetary Support (Cabs) group as all indications of suspension were clear. So, when the announcement was made I was not surprised. The cashgate scandal is so imbued with a multitude of serious governance concerns that are central to the architecture of the aid framework for Malawi. Systemic and institutionalised slippages as revealed recently through ongoing investigations and discourses on cashgate were a sure gateway to aid suspension.
Q:
Information Minister Brown Mpinganjira on Thursday described donors’ withholding of aid as ‘unfair punishment’ on President Joyce Banda’s government. How do you assess this?
A:
The Honourable Minister of Information is obviously entitled to his opinion and to that extent; his utterances have to be respected. However, I hold opinions that are significantly different from his. To start with, I don’t think that the suspension of aid is in any way a punishment to government. Aid is given to benefit the people of Malawi. In my view, the suspension should be seen as an incentive for the government to clean up the rot in the management of public finances to ensure that locally generated revenues and aid money do not line up the pockets of a privileged few but generate benefit streams for the largest number of Malawians. Public resources should be for the greatest good of the greatest numbers. Cashgate revelations are clearly antithetical to this.
Secondly, facts so far indicate that a good deal of cashgate has transpired under the watch of the Joyce Banda administration so much that if the suspension of aid should be seen as a punishment on the current government, the punishment cannot be said to be ‘unfair’ along the lines suggested by the minister. Many people in this country at the moment think that there is need for even more and stiffer punishment for those who have, in one way or another, presided over the wanton looting of public resources.
Thirdly, the minister gave the impression that government thinks it is entitled to receiving aid as if aid is given on the basis of charity. Government should come to terms with the politics of aid in international development, especially the fact that giving aid is a matter of foreign policy of those governments that give it. If the foreign policy interests of the aid-giving governments are at stake or off-track, aid is used to leverage positions and exercise influence.
Finally, the utterances of the minister also implied that this government is not yet thinking of means and ways of reducing dependency on aid. The current suspension of aid should be seen as a taste of ‘shock therapy’ that should get the authorities and all Malawians cracking about how to generate more of our own resources and reduce dependency on donors to single digit proportions in the long-term. Government should not rate its success based on how well they secure aid. In the long-term, a truly successful Malawian government will be one that will institute measures that will significantly minimise the proportion of aid in our national budget.
Q: How do you assess the way the government, civil society and the public have responded to cashgate?
A:
The response to cashgate is on-going as there is no concluded case in the courts and we know investigations are still going on. However, my view is that government response has been moderate generally. Public or State institutions are doing their bits but rather too slowly for the liking of many angry Malawians; and there are apparent conflicts of interest that may somehow influence the pace and extent of overall government responsiveness to cashgate.
The response by civil society organisations has been mixed and sometimes confused. They have done well in raising questions and voices of accountability on a range of issues related to cashgate. But another segment of civil society has also been propagating ideas that may not be lawful and may actually affect the pace of resolving the issue.
The public appears to be in a state of shock but stuck in the comfort zone of docility. A political culture in which many Malawians see themselves as ‘subjects’ rather than ‘citizens’ of the State is still predominant. Consequently, the public is still immobilised and many people do not yet appreciate the depth and breadth of the governance crisis that cashgate entails. There is a clear lack of leadership for popular collective action on this issue and civil society organisation that champion voice and accountability have not risen robustly to the occasion or are now unable to mobilise the masses because of their less than optimal previous performance on other governance concerns.
Q: We seem to be a country that wins and loses donors in quite a predictable cyclic fashion. What is it that we do not know that can best explain this scenario?
A:
When you look at the pattern of winning and losing donors, it is noticeable that the deciding factor has often been political and economic governance practices of ruling elites at any point in time. This pattern of winning and losing donors should help the authorities tasked with managing aid relationships to appreciate that aid is not a matter of charity. It is an instrument of foreign policy and therefore fundamentally political.
Q:
Do you think it is possible to have a donor-free Malawi? If yes, what could be the fundamental change that this country needs to make first?
A:
Yes. I have had reflections on the feasibility of a less donor-dependent Malawi. In a nutshell, my view is that we can reduce our dependency on aid in the next few decades if we can sort out the variable of political leadership. Once we figure out how to break off from a cycle of political rulers and embrace a cycle of transformational leaders, we will unleash the developmental potential of the country.
