Honourable Folks, where’s President Joyce Banda in the cash-gate scandal? I’m not questioning whether she’s implicated or not. Nothing known so far indicates she was involved. If she was, now isn’t the time for us to worry about it.
A President is taken for an angel while in office. If at all there are skeletons in the cupboard, we only hear about it after they’ve left office and a rival has taken over. Kamuzu’s machinations were exposed by his successor, Bakili Muluzi.
Bingu wa Mutharika dragged his predecessor, Muluzi, to court, accusing him of diverting K1.7 billion public funds into his pockets. That case lingers on today. Interestingly, even the late Mutharika of zero-tolerance for corruption fame now has a stinker to his name, thanks to his successor, JB. We’ve been told the former president amassed a whopping K61 billion assets within the eight years he was in office, phew!
So, for Amayi JB, it’s just a matter of time. If she has skeletons in the cupboard someone, someday will expose them. We’ll not even have to ask. But, for now, the question is centered on leadership and ownership of the cash-gate crisis.
The US President or the British Prime Minister have cut short their vacations to provide leadership to the respective nations in times of crisis. The Israeli leader, the Russian leader and many other world leaders do the same. They go or stay home in times of crisis, provide leadership in the search for solutions and use the media or Parliament to comfort their citizens and articulate government’s broad strategy in addressing the crisis.
In Malawi, the cash-gate scandal made hearts go pit-a-pat when former budget director Paul Mphwiyo, nearly got killed in a shooting which the President herself claimed was meant to silence him from exposing the culprits. Suddenly, good citizens realised the Mafia is in town, ready to use the gun to defend fraud and corruption.
The good citizens’ heightened sense of vulnerability came together as a package with loss of between K8 and 20 billion of public revenue and withdrawal of budgetary support by donors who contribute 40 per cent to the budget.
What does all this mean to a people who, even in good times, were dying needlessly in public hospitals due to drug shortage? What does it mean to a people who, even in good times, were being shielded by a grossly under-funded police?
What does all this mean to investment in human capital when, even in good times, our public education system was rotten to the core from primary to university due to underfunding, highly de-motivated teaching staff and gross indiscipline by students?
Mob justice has already reared in ugly face as attested to by the recent instant killing of three crime suspects in Lilongwe. The Reserve Bank Governor has disclosed that besides the aid freeze cash-gate has damaged the image of Malawi so much that commercial banks and the private sector are failing to get credit lines from external sources.
It can’t be business-as usual for JB. She herself—not Vice-President Khumbo Kachale, Information minister Brown Mpinganjira or Chief Secretary Hawa Ndilowe—should come out and use MBC TV or radio to calm down the anger simmering in the citizens and donors alike.
What exactly has her government done to ensure that not a tambala extra of tax revenue or aid is diverted from the intended provision on public goods and services to funding the greed and opulence of criminals in public and private sectors?
The President—not a subordinate—should show remorse for the public funds that was stolen on her watch and apologise for it. All records show that public funds were lost due to the fact that there was no control in government over the Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis) software and ultimate ownership for such recklessness must be with the Presidency itself. It’s a major lapse in stewardship.
We, therefore, need to know what the President and her government are doing to ensure the so-called senior staff who gave away their password and those who illegally used the passwords to loot funds from the public coffers are fished out from their hiding places and brought to book.
It doesn’t inspire confidence at all when the President is only talking about the cash-gate in political rallies while her subordinates are busy spinning propaganda to portray the President as the one who caused the scandal to come out in the open. This is shameful to say the least.
