How to realise economic sovereignty

Honourable Folks, at the burial of former president Bingu wa Mutharika on Monday, DPP secretary general Wakuda Kamanga politely asked those who got bruised as DPP functionaries went about enjoying their easy-come political power to bury the hatchet as well. How so considerate of him!

I also could not believe my ears when one radio station announced the other day that a well-known Cabinet minister was asking for forgiveness for being party to the group that called for a midnight press conference against the ascendancy of Joyce Banda to the position of State President.

Do I see a good loser here? On a more serious note, I believe I am speaking for the many Malawians who appreciate the smooth transfer of power, when I, the Honourable Backbencher, standing at an anthill in our beautiful and peaceful country, salute the Army General and his boys.

All I can say is that after Operation Bwezani in the early 1990s, you have again done us proud, Sirs!

That said, I have a serious problem with the argument that for the sake of unity, government should forgive those who took advantage of their proximity to Mutharika to fleece our nation of its wealth. No. The law must hold to account anyone who stole from public coffers.

Rather, what we must be advising Madame Banda is to be prepared to ensure that the miscreants in her own government are not in any way shielded from the long arm of the law as well. This we must do because our own history has taught us that when power gets to the heads of good people, they can change and become wild animals, ready to devour anyone who dares stop them from using their positions for personal gains.

Madame Banda should have inherited a financially much better off Malawi than any of her predecessors. Under the watch of her immediate predecessor, the late Mutharika, our economy had for over five years been growing at seven percent and above.

Yet today, under one year of zero-deficit budget madness, we face an acute shortage of forex, fuel, drugs and about everything else that forex can bring from abroad.

Indeed, so bad is our economic situation that we could only meet our obligation to accord our fallen president a State funeral with the help of sympathetic neighbours.

The end of Mutharika’s era is ironic. Here is a president who loathed aid and introduced the so-called zero-deficit budget to ensure our recurrent expenses were all met using locally generated revenue.

Yet on his death, the referral hospital he was taken to reportedly did not have some of the drugs and other resources needed to resuscitate a victim of cardiac arrest. We also did not have fuel and paying their last respects could have been a nightmare for many Malawians had it not been for the fuel donated by neighbouring Zambia.

Neighbouring Mozambique also donated fuel and food items which greatly helped feed the multitude that came from near and far to mourn Mutharika officially for 30 days after which it will continue privately for another 40 days.

Big brother South Africa donated the casket in which lay the body of the president of our independent sovereign State. South Africa also provided two planes to fly Mutharika’s remains and family members back to Lilongwe and made a donation of enough fuel to last us for a month. Oh, how so sweet is good neighbourliness!

These are recurrent expenses which could have terribly haemorrhaged our already crippled economy had it not been for the timely God-sent aid that came from our Sadc neighbours.

The coming in of Madame Banda has brought along with it more of God’s favours. Britain has restored its diplomatic ties with Malawi and IMF has urged bilateral donors to resume giving us aid.

If Madame Banda can ensure that this aid and locally generated revenue are efficiently used to produce results, wage a genuine war on corruption and wastage so we don’t continue to lose 30 percent of our revenue annually, I believe we could still realise much of our Vision  2020.

I also believe the economic independence that Mutharika passionately cherished is attainable within the next two decades if we can first use aid to help us reduce poverty, grow the economy and pursue policies that ensure equitable distribution of national wealth and opportunities, especially to women and the youth.

Fast-tracking our economic independence when 40 percent of the budget is funded by donors can only rev the economic engine to a point where it ceases before we reach our destination. The key is good governance and respect for human rights.