MCP’s guilt is own
On Tuesday, Malawi Congress Party’s administrative secretary, Potiphar Chidaya, wondered why the Lilongwe City Council is making a special case out of the debt the party owes in city rates when other institutions—from banks to churches—are in no better shape.
MCP owes the council about K265 million in city rates’ arrears dating back 15 years and they are threatened with seizure of their headquarters if they do not pay up within 30 days.
In 2000, MCP sued and successfully prevented the council from collecting city rates because it did not have councillors in place.
Lest we forget, we had councillors from 2001 until 2005; still, MCP did not pay up.
On Tuesday — 14 years after we elected the first batch of councillors post-1994 — MCP cried blue murder. In between 2000 and 2015, MCP has contested three presidential elections, in which it had as much chance of forming government as any other party. And that’s where I have a problem.
With the dismissive attitude by such a top official, what sort of government would MCP have formed?
Chidaya forgets that churches and businesses would not have access to, or abuse, public resources as the party would if it got elected. Besides, I don’t hold them to the same standards of accountability as I do with political parties, so putting them on the same intensity of guilt is a tad ludicrous.
We are made to believe that an opposition party is a government in waiting.
In the same way that I expect any government to espouse principles of good governance, accountability and respect of the rule of law, I demand the same measure from any opposition party that has a legitimate expectation of forming the next government.
An opposition party that has no inkling of principles of good governance and accountability and has scant regard for the rule of law will not become overnight cheerleaders of those basics once elected.
Behaviour—good or bad—is learned over a long period of time.
On this score, it would be a hard sale, wouldn’t it, for MCP to persuade one they would not abuse state resources in the same manner both the Democratic Progressive Party and the People’s Party rented Blantyre City Council’s houses, but defaulted on the rentals.
I expect the government and opposition parties to defend and respect the country’s laws, even seemingly petty ones such as city bylaws. In the larger scheme of decentralisation, however, city bylaws may not be as petty.
Of late, Lilongwe City Council has not been a house of harmony, with councillors, mostly from opposition parties, taking the mayor and the council’s management to task over lack of development in the city.
Regardless, we expect the cities to collect the rates in order to develop the cities, but if MCP is not pulling in the same direction by paying the city rates, it would be hypocritical to expect the council to deliver development.
MCP has to play its part in balancing the scale. It cannot have its cake and eat it. Aside from the legal obligation, the party has a moral duty to honour its debts.
It is the same opposition parties that cry foul when cities do not function, when potholes appear on the roads and rubbish litters the streets.
How do they expect the city to function when they are holding the city to ransom by hoarding the rates?
