After the courts, there’s political price to pay
Hon Folks, as the ruling party, DPP ought to be concerned that it’s been dragged to court, accused of fleecing statutory corporations of their funds.
Essentially, the case is steeped in the principle of separation of powers. The people believe money from their taxes can be used to run government, not DPP, even though both the government and the party have APM as President.
While it’s up to the court to decide on the point of law, only myopia that comes when insatiable hunger for more power begins to corrupt absolutely can prevent the DPP and its leadership from noticing the political price they may have to pay for abuse of power.
Only three years ago Joyce Banda lost the presidency when a forensic audit revealed massive looting of public coffers which, according to the testimony of Osward Lutepo and other convicts, was meant to help the then ruling PP fund the political campaign in the run-up to the 2014 tripartite elections.
JB denied involvement in Cashgate, saying she ought to be thanked for instituting the damning audit the report of which did not, even remotely, associate her name or office with the malfeasance.
She obviously expected applause for the spin which came after she had already won many hearts in Malawi and abroad for boldly reversing her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika’s decision to closely regulate the money market, a blunder that led to an acute shortage of forex, fuel, drugs and dramatic reversal of the economic growth trajectory of his first term—2004 to 2009.
By devaluing the kwacha by almost 50 percent at once and floating it in the same breath, JB almost instantly opened the taps for forex, fuel, drugs and direct budgetary budget, milestones that made her an overnight political superstar.
To consolidate her gains, JB elevated many traditional leaders, built so many houses for the less privileged rural folk and distributed many motor bikes, foodstuffs, dairy cows, goats and what-have-you. She thought she had at her beck and call the rural mass whose votes are critical in the election of a president by universal suffrage.
Yet, not even her claims of rigging could hold water when after the 2014 polls, JB discovered incumbency did not help her win nor was she the runner-up. Instead, she landed with a bump on position three, a humiliating rejection she could not see when power blinded her to the simmering anger among the voters at how she inexplicably amassed the millions, if not billions, she was eagerly spending on a self-serving agenda.
Now we hear APM government wants JB arrested for Cashgate yet the same APM buries his head in the sand when his own party is fleecing government and parastatals in cash and kind, if this is not hypocrisy, what is?
DPP appears oblivious of the uproar against its abuse of power. State-run MBC is now reduced to a party propaganda mouthpiece and party cadres hijack the mike at almost every State function graced by the President to spew partisan vitriol against their perceived political enemies.
Every national event for which the national flag is mounted, the party ensures it is juxtaposed with its own blue colours. So blue is the thinking in APM government earlier in the week an overzealous Minister donned party colours when welcoming the President on behalf of us all to New York where he is attending the UN General Assembly (UNGA).
Now we hear that DPP cadres in Nkhotakota, eager to give APM a rousing send-off to the UNGA, commandeered a government truck stationed at Nkhotakota District Hospital. They felt so entitled to a free ride to Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe to see the president board a plane at the expense of the taxpayer.
Why couldn’t a party cadre in the district offer their truck? Why not hire? If looting of public resources was bad under the JB administration, what makes it right now?
