Cholera, AIP and the Cabinet
One good thing about travel is that you get to understand certain things that you normally ignore or take for granted. Have you never heard of that worker who failed to tick in a European country simply because they had no nsima?
This past week, I got to be a time traveller in various districts. The journey took me to all three regions and visited districts of Mwanza, Zomba, Balaka, Nkhotakota and Mzimba. What a time to be on the road!
It is clear that the rains are in abundance this year. But, as usually is the case, when the rains fall at normal or above normal rate, you find hitches in fertiliser application.
In that travel, it was evident that fertiliser application was not up to scratch.
Asking around, you got the answer that some of the beneficiaries of the Agricultural Inputs Programme (AIP) had not yet got fertiliser.
If their maize was not already tussling, then it was yellow from lack of nutrients.
Travelling by night, you would meet truckloads of fertiliser. The wonder: Why transport the valuable commodity by night?
Wait. Soon, the Ministry of Agriculture will bring us the first round estimates of production.
As usual they will tell us expect a bumper yield. Then, the politicians will tell us it is all thanks to the AIP.
If the crop is healthy, it is mostly for those who bought it, not at K14 000 as we were hoodwinked, but at K73 000 or above. Others applied manure or got loans from organisations like the One Acre Fund.
During that travel, the face of cholera came to reality. Much as Mwanza is one of the best performers in the numbers affected by cholera, it was disheartening to see an old woman drawing water from the Mkulumadzi River for domestic use.
What was painful is that we were just coming from Blantyre, where a certain big beer brewing company had erected at least three billboards in town claiming: Stop cholera!
Asking around, the cost of renting the space for one of the banners is K1.5 million a month. What is the cost of a borehole?
With the rains, the roads have deteriorated. The death-inducing potholes are all over. Instead of the Roads Authority or council’s coming in to repair the roads, you find young men putting up bricks in the potholes. Are these part of the one million jobs or just a mark that the times are so hard?
Well, as I write, January has been wasted 26 days. It is a lie that January has 31 days. This is the longest month on earth. Even President Lazarus Chakwera knows that.
Mr President, you told us by January you will have reshuffled the Cabinet. In your New Year’s address you put it that the configurations for a lean Cabinet were set. It was out of your own accord that you made it.
Those before you never said when they would toss around ministers. Some ministers have been at State functions only to be told in the middle of things that they have been relieved of their duties.
Was the promise for a lean Cabinet by the end of the next four days a hoax? My heart is with the woman I saw drawing water from Mkulumadzi in the face of cholera. I must pose for a reply.
