Malawi lost in transit?

They saved the country from colonialism and left it to political vultures. Edgar Mbewe of Mwanza says this in memory of founding president and other emancipators who sacrificed their lives for the country’s independence.

In a district where the emancipation leader always claimed to have found people literary naked, the symptoms of poverty still linger 49 years after the historic independence battle. Ragged roads, dust swirling into the air, cracked walls of what used to be magnificent buildings, mud-plastered huts with shoddy grass thatches, people walking bare foot, garbed in tattered clothes and communities where they live in perpetual food scarcity—with most expecting government to subsidise farm production and consumption. These could be confirmations of foreign indexes which categories Malawi as a failed State, with one showing that the country needs at least 74 years to develop into a middle-income economy.

From Mwanza to the country’s commercial capital, there are no national flags or anything hinting at the Independence holiday on Saturday as was the case before Kamuzu’s fall in 1993. Not that people are snubbing the observance as did President Joyce Banda when she opted to dump the day in the name of saving the ailing economy only to celebrate in style her 100 days in power last year. Like Mbewe, they could be asking themselves questions that often go unasked amid the politics and ceremony associated with such days. What does it matter?

“I came to destroy the stupid federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland,” Mbewe remembers Kamuzu as saying, but he wonders: “What is there to celebrate about the fall of British rule if we cannot build on the legacy of self-rule our heroes?”

Lost in the jubilant mood that characterised the swearing-in-ceremony of founding president Kamuzu Banda as the head of State and government at Rangely (now Kamuzu) Stadium 49 years ago, a people that had long waited for self-rule exploded into ecstatic claps and ululations as the country they had grown up knowing as Nyasaland became Malawi. In place of Britain’s Union Jack—a symbol of foreign occupation and oppression locals had always wanted gone—they hosted a flag of a new beginning: the restored black, red and green flag emblazoned with a rising sun, a symbol of new dawn.

Yet about 52 percent of the population lives in abject poverty at a time news is emerging that their elected office-holders, especially former president, stand accused of siphoning billions of kwacha to foreign banks.

In March 2011, there were tears and eulogies when Malawians gathered at Nkhata Bay Martyrs Cemetery to remember locals who were massacred by colonial soldiers for demanding immediate release of Kamuzu Banda at the height of the infamous state of emergency of 1959. Amid the sorrowful mood and sombre veneration, T/A Nkumpha of the district stood up to remind the new generation what British rule entailed.

“Colonialists were cruel,” the traditional leader declared. “One could end up in prison just for touching the grass at the district commissioner’s house—for Blacks were baboons to the colonial authorities.”

The country might have graduated from the dark chapter, but it is struggling to recapture its path to prosperity.

To the poor trying in vain to break free, there can never be a better time to reflection on the country’s legacy than now when Malawians are looking forward to the golden jubilee in July next year.

Exactly a year before the euphoric celebration golden jubilees tend to be, the country’s economy is not only heavily donor-dependent but also seems to be staggering perilously on the thin line between crumbling and melting down.

A look at the K638 billion national budget offers a glimpse of a mother Malawi who euphorically separated with blatant forms of foreign rule only to land herself in subtle neo-colonialists. Looking at the figures from the Capital Hill—yet another symbol of self-rule, for it came to be a seat of government after Kamuzu did away with the colonial capital in Zomba—shows donors are bankrolling 40 percent of the national budget in form of aid and grants.

Reeling under heavy criticism from donors and the civil society organisations, Mutharika celebrated the 2011 independence fiesta in Mzuzu by taking his doubters through a lecturer titled “Moving Forward Together with Peace and Stability” in which he outlined his achievements.

“The destiny of our country is in our own hands. Resources are right here and we should mobilise them. We must stop corruption and move on, for independence is a start of a journey to build the nation,” said Mutharika in Mzuzu.

That a leader could stand on the podium and talk about independence as the beginning of nation building over four decades after it dawned goes further to show how the country has stunted both in popular perception and on the ground.

At worst, the country’s stagnation—or free-fall—mirrors the age-old notions that hold that Africa is not poor because her treasured natural and human resources were heavily plundered by Western colonialists and slave drivers, but because the corrupt leaders continue to loot even the crumbs their people need to walk out of the vicious cycle of hunger, disease and poverty.

This perspective came back to life in the first decade of democracy when former director of public prosecution (DPP) Fahad Assan disclosed that about 30 percent of the national budget goes into private pockets rather than its intended use.

Unfortunately, presidents will continue plundering the country’s ailing economy willy-nilly until the day Malawians choose to reinforce and enforce legal stipulations aimed at combating what Kenyans termed‘grabiosis’. The instruments include Section 88 which requires the presidents to declare their assets, liabilities and business interest.

Like Professor Edge Kanyongolo told The Nation, stopping the leakage also entails ensuring declaration of property at the end of the president’s term.