No wonder we are laggards
In August this year, I read an article in US Time magazine about the bustling rise of Rwanda. Of course, we always expect international media to pitch their stories around poverty, disease, civil war and malnutrition whenever they report about Africa.
But this one was different—and inspiring too. It documented, with honesty, the silent rise of Rwanda: its bustling infrastructure, technology, security, discipline and fears too.
And the journalist even spent some chunk discussing how Rwanda has become the first African country to fill its Parliament with more women than men.
Frankly, I felt like I was reading Charles Dickens—too good to be true. Yet it was really true. Seriously.
Like Malawi, not Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), they do not have gold there. I am saying they do not even have prospects of having oil in Rwanda like it is the case here. They are a nation, not like Malawi, blessed with little.
Yet with very little, Paul Kagame, whom many accuse of being autocratic, is building a great nation from scraps of the 1994 genocide. Just consider this year’s year-on-year Comesa inflation figures released in October. Malawi—which has never experienced genocide, has the bustling lake, mineral deposits and large tracks of virgin fertile basins—has the second highest inflation in Comesa. It recorded 20.5 percent while Rwanda registered 5.6 percent.
Hindsight makes this inflation story even troubling. In late 90s, Rwanda used to borrow our plane, Air Malawi, for its travels. Guess what? Today, Rwanda has 16 aircraft and what do we have here? An Air Malawi sold to outsiders for inefficiency and the only old plane—is always grounded, always excuses.
Are we cursed?
Lately, I have been thinking a lot whether anything is fundamentally wrong with Malawi. Well, although I have not finally come to a conclusion, I have a strong feeling that there is something very wrong about our government.
Yes, I am supposed ‘to ask not what government should do for me, but what I should do for it’. But after asking what I should do for government and I do it—paying taxes, obeying laws, providing advice if need be—the buck stops at government.
It comes back to government not just to come up with sustainable development policies, but also to inspire everybody to participate in the implementation of such policies for the benefit of the nation.
Not only that.
For ‘poor nations’ such as Malawi, with an undeveloped private sector leaving government as the main source of business and market, it means the growth of ‘everything’ in the country depends on the nature of government.
That is why unknowns by virtue of being connected to government, find themselves billionaires overnight.
We also know of companies that, by virtue of being connected to government, rose so fast and built an economic empire and so fast they fell after being disconnected.
This is why statutory corporations such as the University of Malawi, Escom, water boards and Air Malawi, to mention a few, are failing to live up to the public expectation because they are always politicised.
All this adds up to one thing: in Malawi, government is a central player in the political game of the country’s development. Government, I would dare say, is the beginning and end of everything. It is too strong and it has all the resources at its disposal both to build and destroy.
This means if we have a wrong, irresponsible and irrational government, we are doomed. I guess that is the reason we appear doomed. Are we not?
Starting next month, we will be ‘celebrating’ (I guess we should be mourning years of self-misrule) 50 years of self-rule. But compared to how friends such as Rwanda and Mauritius have gone, do we really have anything to be proud of the half century of independence?
I am not being anti-democracy, but the challenge of leadership in Malawi faces, I have always said, cannot be solved by the ballot. The reason can be gauged from what I experienced when I went to a certain event somewhere in Mloza, Mulanje, a month ago. There was a large crowd. Asked to define what they need in a leader, their varying answers spoke one thing: the leader should come from their home.
In fact, one elderly woman, complaining about one of the candidates she claimed is not from the village, said: “Tonse kuno timakonda DPP, ndicho chipani chathu. Nanga nditonama? Koma khasala atibweretsera hatimufuna ife. Sititomuziwa. Amatokhala pa lendi. Munthuyunso ndiwodabwitsa. Ati mwendo wa nkhuku amatomwela tiyi? Angakhale musogoleri ameneyi? Muwawuze a boma amutenge munthu wawoyi. Sititomudziwatu ife”.
My Mloza experience taught me a great deal about why elections won’t solve the leadership problem in Malawi. Most of the people who vote—especially in the rural areas—vote for a person based on irrational issues that have nothing to do with leadership quality of the candidate and also national principles of development as enshrined in the Constitution.
Perhaps we need dictatorship? But we had that for 30 years and we know how little we achieved. Perhaps we should limit voting to a specific class—the way they did in UK during the industrial revolution. But this, again, in a world filled with clouds of human rights and justice is not feasible.
That is, as I have always said before, we need a strong citizenry championed by the enlightened. We need the middle class, university students and dons and civil society to come together and develop a strong voice against continued excess from government.
The Black Monday is too shy and elitist—something for smart boys. The challenge we face from Joyce Banda’s rather clueless government is too entrenched, complicated and multi-facetted to be awakened by men and women in black attire on Monday. We can do better—something more vigilant.
With rotten and dry and porous questions the likes of Nicholas Dausi are asking at Public Affairs Committee (PAC) hearing, do you think we will manage to get the gist of cashgate from intelligent technocrats such as Paul Mphwiyo?
Surely with leaders such as these—the one we have had since 1964, the one still in control of the civil service, of ruling and opposition parties and of parliamentary committees—we should not expect to have our story of rise being documented far. We will always be a case study of poverty, corruption, extravagance, clueless leadership and chronic disease.
I like this. Keep it up.
An opportunity for us to question our democracy. As a country how much progress have we made since 1994? I like the alternatives you have suggested of which of course can not apply in the global context i.e. Giving voting rights to only the elite but yes issues of human rights will come into play. what other alternatives do we have? As we go to vote in May next year, how do I convince my, grand mother, uncle and nephew on who is a good leader to vote for? Looks easy but its an enormous task especially where half the citizenry of voting age are illiterate. In the short term I would think the civil society has a big role to educate the masses on qualities of good leaders. it is a tricky one though as we still vote on ethnic, tribal or regional lines. I don’t agree in any way that we lack competent leaders in Malawi but may be they have not taken any interest to go into politics and become the county’s CEO. Are they being patriotic or selfish? They have their good reasons I guess. In the long term we need to look at our priorities well. Invest in the education system which will give more and more people a chance to push into the middle class. Let our public education system be attractive as it used to 20 years ago. We need to increase the numbers in the middle class. It holds key in starting to question about the broader issues facing our country. Rwanda like many other rising smaller countries from the south show us that it can be done. As you pointed out, the Rwanda case is about visionary leadership. Which one do we want to go for ? politics first? economics first? or both first? Certainly there is evidence that economics first is working .
This is a well written article backed by facts. We need to ensure such critical and valuable articles gets circulated and republished so that many people can see the genre that we have and take it forward.
It all boils down to organized corruption in Malawi. We need democracy to continue but with a much stronger, hands on, selfless leadership, with real love for mother Malawi. Not just God fearing, where the spoils extend to the men of God.
Good article.
Regrettably, it appears that, we are cursed, as a Country and as a people. Let us us for Divine deliverance and intervention at both Country, and personal levels
This article is well thought but lacks reality.and truthfulness. The writer has done enough research on the lack of proper development (negatives only)but without facts to back his arguments .Malawi under M C P witnessed lots of developments ,like lake shore road, Tarring of all major roads i.e M1, M2 ,M5 ,etc.Was the University there ?. How about the new capital ? kanengo silos, Liwonde Barrage,New housing like area 43 ,18, 10,12 ,14 ….in lilongwe ,kanjedza ,chitawira ,chirimba ,chichiri ,,,in blantyre , but to mention a few. .The list is endless,though there was dictatorship,but the country achieve a lot in 30 years.The developments happened due to lack of corruption in the system (could have been but negligible)Come 1994 ,People wanted CHANGE.Mind you Change if not handled careful creates problems.This is what Democracy without responsibilities can bring.Do not blame the current leadership,This mess was started by UDF. UDF Brought crime,prostitution,slandering ,moral decay,hunger and lack of infrastructure development.What can udf point to have built?To DPP, it is the same story.The start was good in the first 5 years.But the moment Bingu wanted his brother to be heir ,and married a clueless second wife, The country lost it…THAT WAS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF DPP.They brought tribal politics and everything stagnated.NO FUEL,NO MEDICINE IN HOSPITALS,POOR TOBACCO PRICES after chasing Azungu,Trash talk and promoting thuggery.Do not forget about Robert Chasowa’s death.The july 20 massacre was a water shed in poor government system.PP was founded on weak foundation due the fact that People never expected a woman to lead.The CASH scandal were started by UDF .BINGU said it many times that mu boma muli kusolola kwambili ,But the writer has easily forgotten .The cow project ,Mudzi project will have an impact in the near future .Please stay healthy .You cant just rely on maize alone, let people produce different crops the way the govt is encouraging farmers.This inflation is maize based.What about rice and other foods?IT is not easy to root out the rotten system in just a year,never:lets write articles to inspire development and encourage people to have hope and work hard.There is no development without sacrifice.Malawi has all what it takes to develop(abundant water,fertile soils ,minerala and cheap labour costs) all we lack is political will. Gutter journalism and lies will take us nowhere .Newspapers should always do thorough research before publishing any article, Other wise you will lose sells and advertisers.There is light at the end of the tunnel and it is never too late to have bus Depots like Park station,high rise buildings ,huge office parks.LET HAVE A PURPOSE ,VISION AND DIRECTION.
Let change for the better.
I had an opprtunity to visit Rwanda this year in May. I was shocked with their infrastructure, order and cleanliness in their city, technology. Malawi must have been cursed.