Pro-poor is pro-poverty

Because of the air transport problems created largely by Air Malawi’s suspension of its Blantyre-Johannesburg flights, Jean-Philippe had to travel through Amsterdam, Nairobi and land at Kamuzu International Airport.  I, therefore, had to travel by coach to welcome him in Lilongwe.

“We should buy the jet your President is selling!” Jean-Philippe joked as soon as we met. I laughed and asked him to follow me to Airport Bar for a drink. 

“I thought you had adjusted your drinking habits, considering the economic hardships you are experiencing!”  Jean-Philippe said as soon as we sat down in the bar and clicked our glasses to our health.

“Well, actually, the government should subsidise the cost of alcohol,” I responded.

“Really? You want people to get drunk even more?”

“Not necessarily. The truth is that for regular drinkers, the alcohol budget is always adjusted upwards in tandem with the cost of drinking!”

“Sounds funny”, Jean-Philippe intoned.

“Sadly, it is the home budget that is affected!”

“So, some Malawians will party with or without their families suffering!”

I told Jean-Philippe that in Malawi, apart from sport, all-day alcohol drinking and all-day praying are a form of entertainment. That is why, I said, Malawi is the only country in the world where people drink alcohol on credit.

“Last time, I wondered why beer sellers could give drinks on credit to a person in the process of mental depreciation?”

“We are umunthu-driven.”

“The South African philosophy of ubuntu, I am because you are… I like that.”

“It’s not a South African philosophy,” I corrected him and explained that Ubuntu or Umunthu is a Bantu humanist philosophy which defines human existence in communitarian terms. Julius Nyerere called it Ujamaa whereas Kenneth Kaunda of called it Zambian Humanism.

“And in Malawi, Kamuzuism?”

“Where did you learn that?”

“I read. Your founding president used to boom: ‘Whatever they say elsewhere, here development means enough food, a house that does not leak when it rains, and decent clothing!’”

“Kamuzuism became poverty-alleviation and now we call it poverty-reduction. Some economists call it pro-poor budgeting!”

“Pro-poor budgeting?”

“Welcome back to Malawi where economic planning revolves around making the most unproductive, lazy, and non-tax-paying richer and the most productive tax-paying poorer.”

“Yes?” Jean-Philippe asked and beckoned the waiter, who had been politely standing at a distance, to give us two more haram drinks.

“This country favours the unproductive: government ministers, religious leaders, MPs, chiefs, heads of government institutions and most lazy villagers.”

“How?”

“Ministers and MPs enjoy duty-free importation, free transport, free housing, free marriage, unlimited untaxed allowances; chiefs enjoy free housing and salaries. The other year, one principal secretary gave himself annual leave money equivalent to 1000 leave days!”

“What?”

“The lazy villagers have free medicines, free primary schools, free fresh water boreholes, free farm inputs, free mosquito nets, and free mattresses.”

“All budgeted for?”

“Yet, some lobby groups want government to increase the freebies. They advance pro-poor economic policies; not robust pro-production, or pro-wealth and pro-job creation strategies.”

“If were president, I would reduce Paye tax, bring back hut tax and primary school fees.”

“But, would you be re-elected?”