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HRDC gives govt mixed scorecard

The Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has given President Lazarus Chakwera’s Tonse Alliance administration a mixed rating with successes on governance and keeping promises, but notes growing discontent among Malawians in other areas, including subsidy programme implementation.

In an assessment titled Procrastination in Decision-making Hurting Malawians HRDC chairperson Gift Trapence presented to the media in Lilongwe on Sunday, HRDC highlighted the investigation and arrest of some key figures in the Peter Mutharika administration on corruption allegations, rolling out of the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) at the campaign promised price of K4 495 per 50 kg bag of fertiliser despite challenges and the expansion of the zero-rated income tax bracket from K45 000 to K100 000 among the key promises kept.

The other kept promises include public sector reforms programme, making operational the Access to Information (ATI) law after four successive administrations refused to do the same and the President fulfilling his pledge to go to Parliament to answer questions from legislators.

On the other hand, HRDC said the early gains made by the Chakwera administration are wiped by broken promises, including growing concern on the pace of the fight against corruption, slowness in decision-making that is proving costly, lack of seriousness in getting value from the mining industry and poor implementation of AIP.

Said Trapence: “In a nutshell, there are troubling signs that the Tonse Alliance administration is on course to betray the trust of Malawians.”

While commending the Tonse Alliance administration for the implementation of the AIP at the election campaign promise price of K4 495 per 50 kilogramme (kg) bag of fertiliser, HRDC in its report noted that the programme—which targets 4.2 million beneficiaries compared to 900 000 for its predecessor Farm Inputs Subsidy Programme (Fisp)—was being rolled out casually, thereby forcing people to spend nights at selling points.

In terms of performance scorecard, Trapence said the Tonse Alliance administration, ushered into office through the court-ordered Fresh Presidential Election held on June 23 2020, had earned 50 percent for not fully implementing some of the critical promises made during the campaign.

Trapence during the briefing on Sunday

But in a telephone interview on Sunday, Mustafa Hussein from the Political and Administrative Studies Department at Chancellor College—a constituent college of the University of Malawi—described the HRDC assessment as unrealistic.

He said in the first place not all the promises made during the election campaign could be implemented within six months of the new administration’s five-year tenure.

Hussein argued that the new administration should be given enough time, saying: “While HRDC is entitled to its claims, all I can say is that at the stage we are, we cannot expect every promise to be implemented within six months. We have to be realistic when carrying out assessments.

“Everyone has seen how implementation of promises has been made… It’s too early to rate it because it started governing just few months ago.”

In a separate interview, political commentator Humphrey Mvula shared Husseign’s sentiments, saying it was wrong to assess government in the manner HRDC has done because it has not been governing for a long time.

While faulting the Tonse Alliance administration on some areas, including provision of information on critical issues, he said Chakwera and his team have performed “extra well” in a number of areas.

Said Mvula: “Giving my own assessment, I say that they have done well because some other issues such as reducing the powers of the President may not be actualised now because they require a process. But looking at the way things have been done, I think they have done well.”

Reacting to HRDC’s assessment, Minister of Information Gospel Kazako, who is the official government spokesperson, said the fact that the grouping has given the Tonse Alliance administration 50 percent score means that government is doing a good job.

He said: “If they have given us 50 percent it means we have performed extremely well because we have been in government only for six months. With that assessment, don’t they think that we will do much better?”

On claims that some unnamed officials in the new administration are perpetuating corruption, Kazako said: “Nobody will be spared in the corruption fight.”

HRDC, in its statement, also claims that the new administration is clueless on how to grow the economy and creating the promised one million jobs during the first 12 months in office.

In the statement co-signed by Trapence, national coordidator Luke Tembo and regional chairpersons Happy Mhango (North), Madalitso Banda (East), Masauko Thawe (South) and Billy Mayaya (Centre), HRDC warns that it will not allow government to get away with malfeasance.

Reads the statement: “We will use every legal means possible to ensure that the Tonse Alliance-led government is held accountable and forced, if need be, to fulfill its promises, through constitutional means.”

In the aftermath of the disputed May 21 2019 presidential election, which was later nullified by the court, HRDC led nationwide street demonstrations that at times turned ugly, to push then Malawi Electoral Commission chairperson Jane Ansah and her team of Commissioners to resign for presiding over a flawed electoral process.

Chakwera, Vice-President Saulos Chilima and other Tonse Alliance partners joined the HRDC marches.

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