Cut the Chaff

Goodall must maintain strong backbone

Finance, Economic Planning and Development Minister Goodall Gondwe is no doubt a strategic man who cares deeply about his country.

I should know. I worked with him for two years at Treasury and I have never seen a man who worked harder; thought much more deeply about his decisions and who insists that “I believe I owe my country a service” even as critics take his age as an issue.

“There are those who think that Goodall is too old to run the economy,” he said self deprecatingly during a sit-down with him at his Capital Hill office in Lilongwe on Monday.

“They are right. I can feel my age in my bones, in my physical fitness; but never in my mind; up here, I am as young and as sharp as ever,” said the octogenarian, laughing. That is obvious in the way he rattles out figures, restates policy positions, and thinks about the economy’s long-term sustainability strategies and how various sectors can leverage the opportunities out there to coherently contribute to broad-based economic growth and development.

“I hardly sleep because I think almost all the time about how we can get out of this [fiscal and economic quagmire].”

What keeps him going, he says, is his belief that while the country is going through a difficult time right now, “in the next 10 years Malawi will be a lot better than it is today” based on what he knows as Malawians’ ability to weather very tough storms.

“I believe that the country should not lose hope. We will do it because I have faith in my country,” he said.

Gondwe has a rare gift for picking out issues and addressing them. He diagnoses problems in the broader economy as well as the public finance system, finds solutions to them and outlines an implementation plan to correct them, largely through the national budget.

The problem, at least in my view, is that he does not stick his neck out enough to see through his measures.

For example, he said in the 2016/17 National Budget Statement that he would only allow a 15 percent salary hike for the most junior civil servants; that the rest would have to endure a pay freeze.

But a few weeks later he was arm-twisted into giving every civil servant a raise.

He was also adamant about not guaranteeing members of Parliament (MPs) tax-payer subsidised loans from commercial banks.

But then he cowered under pressure and let the legislators get away with a loan package Gondwe knew the country could ill-afford.

When parliamentarians pushed for an increase in the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), he softened up.

At first Gondwe said there was no money for that and put his foot down, only to buckle later and, once again, the greedy MPs had their campaign windfall disguised as a constituency development financing window.

I know that our MPs have a nasty habit of blackmailing government, threatening that unless their demands are met, they would not pass the national budget.

It is a clear case of holding the whole country to ransom for personal aggrandisement. On MPs, my advice to Gondwe would be that he should one day call the legislators’ bluff—let them torpedo the national budget and we watch the fallout.

What would be crucial would be for Gondwe to get the support of the whole administration, it should not be his fight alone.

The administration’s public relations architecture should focus on this matter in a harmonised way.

Imagine if the MPs—dominated by the opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and People’s Party (PP)—refuse to pass the national budget simply because they want more perks and more pork.

Imagine, for example, that because of that government fails to fund hospitals and the drug situation, already terrible, gets worst.

Imagine that civil servants fail to get paid because there is no budget in place and public services start stinking even more than they already are.

Just imagine that public schools fail to open simply because the opposition dominated Parliament has refused to pass the budget until their demands of milking more taxpayers’ money for themselves are met—imagine that.

With an effective public relations machine government should win the battle of public opinion because it would be on the right side of history and standing with the suffering citizens.

Unfortunately, the public relations team in this administration is so inept to the extent that it is almost non-existent.

As a result, the likes of Gondwe are forced to make compromises they know are bad for the country and its majority poor.

At the same time, if Gondwe cannot stick his neck out for what he strongly believes is good for the country and defends it vigorously, then why bother come up with such positions at all? n

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2 Comments

  1. If Gondwe is aminister for finance and economical planning..it means he’s failing his job…His planning is not working in this country…He was supposed to be stubborn. Stick to what he knows about economy performing cuts, to shape the country even if the president tells him contrary to what he knows about economy, there h ed can put hands off, or resign for the good of the country as well as his own reputation…Gondwe is agood man koma akulephera ntchito… The lives of malawians are in his hands….Gondwe has to resign or achotsedwe ntchito

    1. We need seriuos people in hard times…there are ministers sabotaging APMs gvt hence it looks like APM principals are not working becouse of lucking carrying m achinery to imprement those principals stratagies laws…achotsedwe ntchito… this is not times for politics but shaping our country…achotsedwe ena alandile ma trasnfer… put people who can deliver posatengera zandale ..

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