Reflections on decentralisation gaps

Enifa Saladi is an extra ordinary young woman with a blossoming future. Born and raised in the rural outskirts of Traditional Authority (T/A) Malemia in Malawi’s old capital, Zomba, she has no sound education, although she can read and write. The 28- year- old short, dark-complexioned and slender Form-Two drop out, however, has a skill that leaves tongues wagging in her community.

Enifa is a broadcaster. Not one whose voice will echo and register recognition from national airwaves. Nonetheless her work has brought illumination and understanding of democracy and the value of ‘power to the people’ in the area of T/A Malemia, in a way scholars and activists can only envy.

As a monitor of Lufani Radio Listening Club, Enifa is well trained in radio production as well as in governance issues. Development Communication Trust (DCT) offered this training as part of the Liu Lathu Mwananchi Project.

The project injected a new enthusiasm in Enifa that her work in community mobilisation took a new twist after understanding the Mwananchi programme goal of promoting decentralisation and good governance among local people.

“We were oppressed here. We did not know what to do to access development projects and we did not even know where development money comes from.

“Now we know all about this development. We know that elected officials use our tax money which they flash as if it is their own and that they have to account for that,” explains Enifa.

Radio listerningclubs

She adds that all this knowledge has come when DCT trained all three radio listening clubs in T/A Malemia. They have been told that as local people, they are supposed to decide what sort of development projects should be in their area. In the past, she says, the role of local people was just to attend and listen to development meetings with numerous projects imposed on them.

She says ordinary people, especially women, were only expected to clap hands, ululate and dance at such meetings. But that is slowly toning down in the area.

“We speak out at any meeting when we notice something is wrong,” says Enifa. She adds that voices of the ordinary people are now not only heard through local meetings but on community and national radio stations as well.

“Now we work with Village Development Committees (VDCs) and chiefs. They invite us during village consultative meetings where people express their visions or problems. Of course, we train them to speak openly and to tell the truth.

“We record the meetings and at a later date present the tape recordings at a meeting with district council officials to address what people at VDC meeting have raised,” said Enifa.

As the material gets broadcast on Joy Radio, people’s concerns, visions and problems in T/A Malemia’s area are now heard in all his six group village heads, Zomba and the entire country.

This, she says, has opened up many minds in the area. Even those who doubted the initiative are free to express themselves.

“We do not fear anyone. We can go the district council office without fearing unlike in the past when we were not regarded as valuable people,” she explains.

Positive result

Enifa says the Liu Lathu interactions have already yielded positive results among authorities that include chiefs, members of parliament and public officers who are now involving ordinary people before starting any development project.

Group village head Mtogolo, one of the six under T/A Malemia, echoes Enifa’s story. He concedes that he too has been freed by Liu Lathu, claiming he now has a good idea of what democracy is all about.

“Our leaders who championed democracy hid a lot from us. They said we will have power, but did not open up after voting for them. I guess they just wanted to have money to themselves,” explains Mtogolo.

About 300 kilometres away from Zomba, a veteran politician Foloma Mwale confesses that he has been in the dark about democracy and decentralisation all this long until meeting Liu Lathu in 2010. This has helped him understand power play in a democracy. His sentiments are rather shocking considering he has been a political leader for the past two decades.

Foloma says he wished the Mwananchi initiative came earlier as it could have improved the community. He argues that the community is now well armed to confront any one running a project without first consulting people.

Foloma says people’s knowledge on how development projects have to be run have reduced stealing of construction materials apart from the fact that the community can reject a project if deemed undesirable.

“Currently, there is no corruption in the projects. Government officials are now careful when they see us. Just recently, we were able to recover remaining items such as glasses, doors and bags of cement after completing the construction of a teachers house at Kalulu primary school,” says Foloma.

Fraud and corruption

He says in the past all building materials would vanish without a trace.

The only thing they know was that projects run short of materials.

Back in Zomba, Enifa elaborates that Liu Lathu inspired training of community initiates in development projects and follows up where there are delays.

Enifa also narrates that in the three areas of T/A Malemia where there are listening clubs, three teachers’ houses have been built together with a school block.

She further explains that in Group Village Head Machinjiri area, people proposed and built an additional house for a nurse and a guardian shelter at the health centre. In Makungula area, a teacher’s house and a school block have been built.

As a show of people’s power, Enifa says the community takes to task those managing a project if something fishy is noted.

“When building a nurse’s house in Group Village Head Machinjiri’s area, workers at the site were selling cement meant for the house. We went to the contractor, told him to stop and fire the workers that he brought with him for the development project as they had proven not to care about the project since they were not from this area,” says Enifa.

With most people interested in operations of development projects and following up on their proposals to the council, there is a sense of urgency, and commitment of willingness to take more part in development initiatives.

The community has already developed a citizen charter with a vision to transform their community to become a better place with good roads, schools, hospitals and clean sources of water by 2019. The charter is now with the district commissioner’s office, a road map to all interventions in T/A Malemia.

Enifa and her colleagues from Lufani radio listening club have been given the role to present the citizen charter to the representative of the district commissioner. This is in appreciation of the inspiring way Liu Lathu has changed the people’s mindset in the community.

Her only need is to have enough bicycles so that she can soldier on spreading the Liu Lathu gospel to three other sectors of T/A Malemia where the project has not covered. Her desire is to see the entire community questioning authorities, speaking without fear and choosing their own development projects just like it is happening with the people she has been working with.

For the Malawi Economic Justice Network (Mejn) who have been supporting implementation of the Liu Lathu programme by funding local NGO’s such as DCT, efforts like the one in Zomba are important since some communities are able to articulate their development needs as required in a decentralised environment.

Mike Banda, Mejn regional coordinator for the South, however, wishes that duty bearers would open up to local people in giving them what they want since decision making on where resources should go is still not in the hands of ordinary people.