The DPP government at it again
Since he came into office, President Peter Mutharika has attended one meeting of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) in 2014 and has not seen it fit to attend many meetings of the African Union (AU) Heads of State summits.
On the many occasions he has missed international meetings, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has cited cost saving as the reason.
But he has not, even for a single year, missed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, that one useless meeting in which the Malawi Head of State is given 15 minutes to talk about issues that the 190 members of grouping do not pay attention to but ends up costing taxpayers millions of kwacha in travel and allowance costs.
UNGA is an attractive meeting for State House and the myriad government officials who accompany Mutharika for one reason only: the financial rewards that come with travelling to the US and it is not rocket science why the number of ministers attending the meeting has gone up from three last year to a whopping six this year.
Once again, the government has seen it fit to deny its own citizens what should really be common knowledge about the itinerary at UNGA. A whole president of a nation cannot leave for New York without an idea of what he will be doing there at every minute and hour of his stay.
It cannot be that with all the technocrats that the public service is endowed with, a whole Minister can deign to say President Mutharika will return to the country as he so wishes.
Such rampant disregard for views of Malawians who have directly funded this trip is exactly what angers them enough to take to the street and would inform their decision when ticking that ballot box in May 2019.
Should Malawians really start wondering where their president will be in the coming weeks and what he will be up to? A man who holds this office because 1.9 million people entrusted him with it?
How does this government not learn anything from the 2016 debacle when the whole State machinery hid the whereabouts of the president from 17 million Malawians to the extent of this nation becoming an international laughingstock?
How does this government justify being ignorant on the size of the delegation to UNGA when since the 2015 fiasco, there are clear guidelines to be followed so that some government officials do not take girlfriends to New York on shopping sprees at the expense of actual work that would benefit Malawians back home?
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which at last check was led by a Minister with a PhD, Emmanuel Fabiano, surely must know that a list of delegates passed through the corridors of his building en-route to State House for approval.
It has not been for years now, the prerogative of any ministry to approve travel to UNGA anyhow and there was hope that things had changed. But if what Dr Fabiano said is anything to go by, 2015 and 2016 did not happen.
Would it be wrong to deduce that the high number of ministers attending UNGA is more about wanting to travel as much as possible before May 21 and a possible shocker comes around?
The Minister of Foreign Affairs must be fully aware of the presence of undesirables on the 2018 UNGA delegation. Just as he must have been fully aware that traditional leaders made the Comesa trip in July this year, chiefs who could neither comprehend the purpose of the meeting nor explain their presence in Lusaka.
As this government should have learnt by now, there is no secret under the sun and hiding information from the public will just cause people to dig more for the truth.
Within the murky public service are people of goodwill who know a bad thing when they see it and do not sit back twiddling their thumbs. The nation learnt that the Democratic Progressive Party pocketed K145 million from a shady deal and they can certainly find out who the president is taking with him to UNGA.
The DPP government would do well to learn from its mistakes but that would be asking too much of this administration.
