It goes without saying that Malawians are facing a lot of problems ranging from poor service delivery to low education standards and above all is the stagnant economy. These situations mentioned here and many more out there are not exaggerated at all. The proof is life of the majority of Malawians who are permanently poor and there seem to be no hope at all soon.
As most Malawians already know by now, the genesis of the life threatening poverty in the country is the deep rooted corruption. It is unfortunate that Malawi seem to be fertile ground for all manner of corruption. It is not even surprising at all that the Afrobarometer which is a pan-African Research Network has said that Malawi`s corruption is rising and has recently even gotten worse. This was said after the research survey the Afrobarometer did. Meanwhile, the Peter Mutharika government looks at the research survey result as unfair because it does not take into consideration the effort that government has shown in fighting corruption. Such an argument is a deliberate move to divert people from knowing the real status of corruption in the country and probably try to find solutions. It is no use splitting hairs in trying to convince people that the government is focused and working hard to fight corruption. Honestly speaking, there is no sign of this. Otherwise, organisation such as Commonwealth whose head of public sector government of the Secretariat would not have said recently that Malawi continues to rate poorly on regional and global indices because there is no political will. So, where is the effort that government is talking about?
Even the appeals from the President that Malawians should join hands to stop corruption is not enough on its own. In fact, the President is just diverting attention so as to shift the blame elsewhere for failing to curb corruption. The President should know better that without proper leadership the battle against corruption cannot be won.
It must be also mentioned that one other thing that diverts attention from important issues is the trivialisation of the matter. In Malawi now, corruption is the point of national debates. Obviously, everyone wants to hear what the President has to say. To most people what even the President says is the gospel truth. With such great expectation it is very disappointing to hear the President respond lightly to an important matter. For example, during the coronation of Senior Chief Ngolongoliwa to Paramount Chief, the President commented about people alleging that some of his Cabinet ministers are corrupt. He appealed to those alleging this to go ahead and abduct the ministers, tie them up and dump them at a road round about. Honestly, this was a bad joke and not fit for a burning issue such as corruption. The danger here is that some people might take the President`s comment as meaning that he will do nothing on corruption unless the alleged corrupt people are brought to him. May be this is short of saying he will do nothing on corruption. This is because it is almost impossible that Malawians will ever drag some corrupt individuals to him.
One would assume that the President would have taken the findings of his Commission of Enquiry on Malawi- Zambia maize gate as a whistle blow more especially that it led to the dismissal of one of his Cabinet ministers, George Chaponda. Therefore, he could have allowed ACB to investigate the rest of the ministers in order to put to rest the rumour that he is shielding some corrupt ministers.
The other vice that DPP led government uses to divert attention is to parade people who have defected from other parties to join DPP. This practice does not add value to the country`s progress. The government needs to lead people to focus on meaningful issues and not trivia.
