Your Excellency, Bwana, unto you we address this epistle calling upon you to address us as your people.
Especially, we who live here on the lowest rung of the social ladder, are not in the habit of writing letters to people in high office, because we do not wish to be misunderstood as beggars or mere attention-seekers.
However, there are times—like now—when we feel obliged to write on behalf of the many Malawians who do not have a platform to be heard, and also on our own behalf.
Your Excellency, in the past six months of your rule, we have seen and appreciated your attempts at developing this nation. But we verily and plainly say unto Your Excellency, some of your attempts are unnecessary and hurting.
We hope you have elephant ears to hear the people—your people—crying, because they are hurting.
The value-added tax (VAT) is hurting everybody. Pay as you earn (Paye) is hurting workers. Escom and water board tariffs are hurting everybody. Fuel prices that you have raised three times since your returning to State House are hurting everyone. Remember, your boys kept telling us that the fuel has too many levies. Can’t you remove some of the levies, like your colleagues all over the world have done?
The average people are saying ‘better Chakwera and Tonse Alliance’. If you have not heard this, walk in the streets of Mzuzu, Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Zomba.
The only people who appear happy are politicians and para-politicians who are given 750 litres of fuel, multiplied by K7 000 per litre—K5250 000 per month. As you share this largesse, please consider the small civil servant as well. Subsidise their transportation. The civil service should be an equal-opportunity employer.
If we were asked the Trumpian question: “Are you better off than you were four months ago?” the majority would answer no.
The general bottom-rung population of this country—the voting corps—are depressed, disappointed, dejected, frustrated, and pessimistic.
We, the people who voted for the Blue Alliance, feel short-changed. Tinabetsa voti. We feel that the great promises you made during the presidential election campaign will not—and some say will never—materialise. Our enemies now feel vindicated. They say we were promised the moon, the stars, and the hot sun, and they are already laughing at us.
Your Excellency, most of us on the bottom-rung were happy to hear you promise a Malawi where all would be treated equally and have equal access to opportunities. But the truth on the ground is that some of us have had no opportunity at all—no matter how much you silence those who say so. It reminds us of Orwellian Squealer, that clever pig, who wrote that “all animals are equal but some are more equal than others”. Surely, Your Excellency, you have read Animal Farm. If you have not, send us your email address so that we can send you a soft copy.
Graduate children from the bottom-rung have been unable to find employment—not even internship placements in the public service. How do children from the bottom-rung miss every shortlist, even for police officer recruitment? Why are the children of those on the top-most rung found on every list?
Even trained teachers and nurses have been languishing hopelessly at home. Yet we all know that Malawi’s public health sector alone has over a 52 percent vacancy rate. Almost 40 percent of positions in local councils remain unfilled. Malawi has vacancies. Why, then, are people not being employed?
All we have heard and seen are public lectures on how to become entrepreneurs and job creators. We are told to change our attitudes and mindsets, to be more hopeful and creative and less cynical. We wonder why the public lecturers themselves do not create the jobs and become entrepreneurs.
At present, township roads in Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Mzuzu look like we have just emerged from the Gaza war. Where does the money go?
Your Excellency, when you visit Blantyre, please walk—unannounced—from Sanjika Palace down to Chilomoni Market, M’bwelera, Gadaga, Chatha, and other such places, and see for yourself the sombre faces of your people.
