Mr. President, talk is cheap
President Lazarus Chakwera’s speech on Tuesday night, May 31 2022, is what some of us have been waiting for, probably for the past year. The austerity measures outlined therein are welcome and necessary and perhaps should have been announced months ago.
The measures outlined so far, do give hope that if adhered to, perhaps the country will slowly recover from some of the economic malaise. In short, the President’s speech was inspiring and a ray of hope that perhaps the government is not just sitting idle while the country’s economy is on a sickbed.
On the one hand, I would like to give the President and his government the benefit of the doubt and hope that there will be no regrets. On the other hand, I am skeptical. I doubt if at all any of the laid-out austerity measures will be fully implemented and if they do implement, I fear that the gains from the austerity measures may not be put to good use especially, if the financial management systems are left leaking and rampant corruption is not dealt with decisively. This would mean the President’s speech on Tuesday night was just another talk show good for optics and political visibility and nothing else.
Talk is cheap. The real difficulty is in doing the things that the President said must be done. There will be pockets of resistance to change because, in this country, we have a cunning civil service that will do anything and everything in its power to create field trips just to get allowances. I hope all the loopholes are tightened to leave no room for manoeuvring by some officers. Let there be no room for fake emergencies.
In his speech, Chakwera expressed frustration just like their leader, .Malawians are frustrated that while they are struggling to make ends meet in these hard economic times, their leaders seem to have little regard for the suffering of the people and continue to feed their appetite for luxuries instead of saving the little resources that are there.
It is not enough to express frustration and anger and issue ultimatums. We have been here before. We have seen and heard the President expressing his anger at certain issues and even issue instructions which were either deliberately ignored or there was no political will to ensure the instructions were followed. Examples abound where presidential anger didn’t yield the results that people had hoped for. For instance, what happened to the anger shown on the Covid-19 funds’ mismanagement?
In the end, the buck stops at the President. Be decisive where there is wrong-doing and stop skating around the issue. Those that will fail to adhere to the setout measures, should be dealt with decisively if at all the measures will yield anything.
I hope this time around the President means business. Adherence to these austerity measures will only be internalised if the President and his team lead by example. It will not make sense if the President jumps from one plane to another while at the same time preaching austerity.
This is time aim for less talk but more action.
