Govt is so broke that it is walking about naked

(The Network Towards Equity in Health executive director Marita Wathaine has resuscitated the call to declare government bankrupt initially filed by Finance Minister Gado Gandall which the People’s Tribunal declined. Judge Mbadwa has asked Wathaine to make her case)

Marita Wathaine: My Lord, the Finance Minister Honourable Gado Gandall asked this court to allow government to file for bankruptcy as one way of protecting the Mapuya-led government from the embarrassment of losing most of its property to creditors.

My Lord, Honourable Gandall, as grounds for filing for bankruptcy, cited among others, failure to hire civil servants; failure to restock public hospitals with drugs and the general dwindling of government revenue which means that they cannot fund most of their critical services and operations. He argued that the country’s economy was in dire straits.

Unfortunately, this tribunal found the arguments the minister advanced wanting because as you stipulated my Lord then, the financial mess this administration finds itself in was created by its insatiable appetite for spending on non-essentials and luxuries.

Mbadwa: Your argument madam Wathaine?

Wathaine: My Lord, in refusing government’s application to file for bankruptcy, you asked the minister of finance to put his house in order and tame needless expenditure. But my Lord they have failed to mop their own mess and the situation has gone from bad to worse.

We have a country that is forced to critically reduce funding to the health sector so much that patients are being starved, yet patients are encouraged not to take medicine on an empty stomach if the drugs are to work. But it is as if authorities know that there are no drugs in hospitals; hence, no need to give them food. The Network Towards Equity Health is concerned about this situation.

My Lord, if a government is being forced to starve its patients, fails to run an ambulance system, cannot buy medicine and cannot pay utility services bills and has to appeal to the mercy of suppliers such as water boards not to disconnect public health facilities to avoid being embarrassed, what is remaining of the economy of that country? When you hear an elected government deciding to privatise public hospitals because it cannot afford to run them know that the economic situation is so terrible. This government has become so poor that it is moving about in tattered clothes, displaying its nakedness for all to see. It is for this reason that I ask this court to consider declaring it bankrupt.

Mbadwa: I agree this government is so broke that it is walking about naked. But it is the poverty that comes about because, instead of buying clothes, one chose to spend money on women and beer. We would not have been experiencing these kind of problems had the Mapuya administration tamed its appetite for spending taxpayers’ money on useless things. I once again refuse to declare it bankrupt. If it were Magufuli, the guy across the Songwe border, he would have sold some State Houses, reduced the Cabinet, reduced the presidential convoy and banned external travel to save money for essential services. This government has not tried enough. All it knows is raising tax and increasing charges fees to fleece the poor. I throw out this application once again. n