In exercise her duties conferred upon by the Bottom Up constitution, our indomitable, indefatigable, award-winning, and unimpeachable leader of delegation, the Most Honourable Ms Joyce Befu, MG 33 and the Most Excellent Grand Achiever (Mega-1), PPM, has asked us to ask what we have gained 31 years after democracy.
Malawi is a small country with astronomical fecundity rates. We are estimated at 21 million, 14 million since 1994. Also since that time we have constructed one university, the Malawi University of Science and Technology. The rest are converted.
From Mzuzu Teacher Training College we have Mzuzu University. From Bunda and Natural Resources College (NRC) we have Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar). From the Polytechnic we have now Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (Mubas). From Kamuzu College of Nursing and College of Medicine we got Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (Kuhes). And from Chancellor College, our Chancellor College, there is retained the name University of Malawi. Nothing new except change of names.
And if it had not been for the Heist projects, the structures would have been the same but in worse off condition. The question is what went wrong?
Malawi has few major roads. The first road runs from Kubodara in Nsanje through Blantyre to Lilongwe up to Mzuzu and down to Songwe via Karonga. The next road runs from Blantyre via Zomba and Balaka. From Balaka we have a road to Monkey Bay. Then we have the most neglected major road—the Balaka-Nkhotakota-Nkhata Bay. Then we have the Salima-Lilongwe-Mchinji Road. These are poorly maintained. If you don’t believe us, ask the people of Balaka. Ask. Ask the people of Kafukule, Bolero, Hewe and Wenya. The question is what went wrong?
When we sit down and tell children that this very country had a train service whose schedule was predictable, that we had a bus services that was prompt, the city circular bus in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu; that we had a lake steamer service whose calendar was predictable, and that our economy was something we prided ourselves in, they think it is fiction. The question is: What went wrong?
We have part of the answers. What went wrong was that democracy brought about competition for self not service to the poor. The conditions of services that politicians give themselves make them forget the people.
Imagine, a Speaker of Parliament will die receiving a salary after serving only five years in that seat. Imagine, all presidents and vice-presidents (appointed by or elected with the president) are entitled to full salaries until they die. Yet we have people who have served the country in other areas for their lives who are suffering because their pension is peanuts.
Do you see what we see? Politicians care about themselves first. They don’t think about the roads or where the people live.
