It has been a bad week for the forex, fuel and cement, et cetera-starved Malawi, on the back of a raging debate over a self-serving proposal that members of Parliament (MPs) should be on a salary when they retire.
In the week, Malawi has lost former finance minister Goodall Gondwe, a distinguished economist who will go down in the history of the country as one of its best Minister of Finance. Among other things, as Minister of Finance in 2005 to 2008, Gondwe managed to bring down inflation from 30 to six percent while the economy grew by six percent. During the same period, Gondwe was the architect of the $2.3 billion debt cancellation by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The move wiped off about over 90 percent of the country’s debts. It is said that this was partly because of his economic maestroism. Giving her tribute to Gondwe, former president Joyce Banda said she did not know of any other public servant who was so dedicated to work. Gondwe died in Lilongwe on Tuesday after a short illness, aged 87. And since then tributes have not stopped pouring in from all those who knew him.
As preparations for Gondwe’s interment were being made, the debate about whether lawmakers should be paid salaries when they retire continued unabated. Legislator for Chitipa South Werani Chilenga is the man who has been charged with the responsibility of bringing the motion to the House.
It emerged during the week that Chilenga is just a front on this evil campaign. The private members motion he will bring to the House has wide support from fellow lawmakers. Just that they can’t show that support openly now, fearing backlash. The legislators’ argument is that the President, Vice-President, Speaker of Parliament and their deputies, who are elected just like them, are all on a pension scheme. They think that the current arrangement which leaves them out of such perks is discriminatory.
This is a sad day for Malawi. I pray for this devilish motion to be stillbirth. It should go nowhere. The argument that MPs should be paid a salary after living office just like all other elected leaders does not hold water. The elected leaders on pension are very few. Utmost there are only five people at the end of every five years that are added to the pension payroll. But if this motion is adopted, more than 114 former lawmakers will enter the pension payroll every five years. This is because half of the MPs fail to retain their seats during elections. Adding more people to the pension scheme will therefore greatly strain the small resource envelope and further reduce the fiscal space for government to carry out other social and developmental programmes.
Now hear this. Once we add lawmakers to the pension scheme—to be receiving half their current salaries—next seeking the same will be ward councilors who are also elected officers. What will be the justification for leaving them out of the arrangement MPs want implemented?
If there is anything on which all politicians in Parliament always speak the same language, it is about how to line their pockets. Unfortunately, it is all of us the taxpayers that will be footing the resultant larger-than-life pension scheme. We must stop this greed, this madness and wanton abandon of decency and morals. If we don’t, we should not expect anyone to do it for us. The media, private sector, civil society, the academia, governance gurus, the faith groups and all well-meaning Malawians should rise up in arms against this shamelessness, impropriety and self-serving behaviour by the lawmakers.
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