Mutharika’s one-year challenges, prospects
May 2015 marks exactly one year since President Peter Mutharika and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) were ushered into office. Like any other new president, Mutharika made a number of promises when he took office. Among them were to have a Cabinet of 20 ministers, embark on civil service reforms, introduce community colleges, implement zero-aid budget and improve the lives of Malawians.
In the one year that Mutharika has been in office Malawians have not benefitted much from his government’s interventions. Although he has maintained a lean Cabinet and undertaken civil service reforms, these have not translated into improved service delivery yet. The only programme that has been of benefit to Malawians is the continuation of the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp), although procurement and distribution of the fertiliser need to be improved.
Otherwise, almost all the sectors of the economy have been stagnant. For example, public transport system is still in a crisis; tobacco farmers are still getting a raw deal at the floors; irrigation agriculture is largely a pipedream with few schemes dotted across the country. The economy is failing to create sustainable employment despite economic growth; our cities and towns are characterised by poor roads and untidiness. In a nutshell, Mutharika has failed to address bread and butter issues—issues that would improve lives of Malawians.
Any hope for Malawi? Much depends on political will and Mutharika and ministers need to change the way they run government. They are still trapped in ‘business as usual’ mode. They need to be the first to make sacrifices, work extra hard and focus on issues that will really improve the standard of living of ordinary Malawians.
Government should also look at all possible ways of saving money. One wonders why government involves the private sector to procure and distribute fertiliser when Admarc can ably do that using its wide presence across the country. Many of these companies that supply fertiliser to government actually overcharge and have limited capacity to distribute the fertiliser.
City councils and municipalities are focal points of service delivery, but they are essentially dead. Ironically, these councils spend lavishly on their senior employees. For example, it was reported that the Lilongwe City Council recently bought two vehicles for senior members at K67 million. That shows misplaced priorities. On the other hand, government devolve power to municipalities to make local government work, but decentralisation cannot work without devolution of funding
In the absence of donor budgetary support, government is implementing the zero-aid budget which needs a lot of resources. It is important that government should come up ways of mobilising resources, especially coming up with investments mining and manufacturing sectors either alone or through public private partnership (PPP).
Government should stop banking too much on foreign investment to create employment. It is not easy to attract foreign investment in a country such as Malawi that lacks basic fundamentals of attracting investment.
The much anticipated mayors and councillors to spearhead development are equally doing little. If they are failing to construct public toilets, there is cause to be doubtful that they can improve lives of urban and rural Malawians.
But still Malawians are looking to the Mutharika government to improve their lives.
