With elections in sight, the IMF programme will once again derail

Dear judge Mbadwa,

My lord, the economic challenges facing the country had various people commenting how a new extended credit facility from the International Milking Fund (IMF)  seems to have brought a smile to the government yet it is no panacea for our woes.

My lord, I agree with Jonah Kapita’s proposal that Lazaro and his friends in Tokha Are Liars need to go beyond the synthetic rendering of those announced austerity measures.

Why should we listen to Kapita’s proposal for Lazaro’s government to trim the size of the Cabinet, reduce presidential entourage and fleet of cars, fire some permanent secretaries and reduce the number of presidential advisers, among others?

As others have argued, the apparent sacrifice that has come with the 44 percent devaluation is just ornamental. Politicians are ready to derail the programme once again because their concern really is winning the 2025 elections.

Don’t be excited that the devaluation seems the necessary evil now because they had no choice but to please the imperial masters once again.

But mark my words, the expenditure will go beyond control starting from next the campaign year in 2024 as the programme will derail and more challenges for the citizens will emerge as the country will go back to square one.

As I have argued before, we have been brought this far by politicians’ lack of foresightedness and their penchant for shortcuts when transacting business on behalf of the people.

My lord, that we should have been a self-sustaining economy if we were not that greedy and gullible is common knowledge.

My lord, we are certain that the politicians will once again drag down Nyasaland into another bottomless pit of economic turmoil after derailing the current programme because it is elections that will soon take prominence.

During that period of political madness called campaign, all caution is thrown into the wind because what matters is pleasing a fragile electorate.

At this stage, talking about austerity measures does not make sense to anyone in government because the focus shifts to remaining in power at all costs.

So, the IMF programme vehicle for sure will deliberately be crashed into a self-generated dead end barrier.

 And we will start the process again after the elections. Meanwhile, the citizens’ challenges will have reached a boiling point stage.

 I hope we have not sold ourselves dog meat with these cosmetic measures and policies we are not going to religiously follow anyway.

Don’t say you weren’t told.

Regards,

John Citizen.