Progress needs positive reporting

Some people in Malawi have short memory.  They even fail to remember the past leadership records in a democratic Malawi.  Obviously, it is such kind of people who fail to appreciate the change of government and its success stories. 

Short memory is bad because people remain in past mode. They cannot even remember that Malawi was falling apart under the Democratic Progress Party (DPP)-led government. There was total disunity because of tribalism, nepotism, favouritism as well as indelible corruption and stealing in government.

Abuse of public resources were the order of the day by those people with some powers. Unfortunately, the leadership was not doing anything to check the excesses mentioned here. Malawi was turned into a country where anything goes.

Due to the above, Malawi went on a continuous downward spiral in development.  As if this was not bad enough, people lived in fear of the DPP cadets, who would pounce on anyone, anytime, and without any reason.

Most likely, it was due to what is stated above, that the majority of Malawians wanted a change of government after the 2020 court-sanctioned fresh presidential election. As it were, Lazarus Chakwera won the elections under the Tonse Alliance banner, by beating Peter Mutharika with over one million votes.

Meanwhile, the Tonse Alliance administration seems to have started well in working towards achieving their promises. However, from time to time one hears of disturbing statements that the Alliance is falling apart.  Probably, this is more of a wishful thought than anything else.  May be the cracks in the Alliance are brought in by those who hard expectations of getting lucrative jobs once the Alliance was in power. Now that this is not happening, they conclude that the Tonse Alliance is up to no good. But it is naïve thinking that all the members of the Alliance would be paid handsomely by being given top jobs.  This is not possible. Sensible people should just appreciate the peace and calm, and other conducive environment for everyone to work hard and be successful, unlike in the past.

Let everyone remember that during the past government, Malawi was known as the most corrupt though Mutharika would say that people are just obsessed as the situation was not as bad. Mutharika did not do anything about corruption.

Meanwhile, the Tonse Alliance administration has challengingly tackled corruption and thieves who have stolen money in government.  So far many suspects are being arrested regardless of their positions in the society. Wherever possible, the suspects have to pay back the money to government.

This is a success story. The other success story was the cheap fertiliser sold to farmers who have now enough maize and other crops for them to, indeed, eat three times a day. 

People can remember well that during Mutharika’s era, he could set up task forces to quickly sort out problems. He could also set up some commissions of inquiry.  Unfortunately, reports would rarely come out for public information. This is unlike the Tonse Alliance administration, which produces reports by task forces and, recently, produced the mother of all reports and that was from an investigative audit which revealed most of the corruption suspects and thieves of the Covid-19 funds amounting to K6.2 billion.

Looking at the strong relationship between president Chakwera and Vice-President Saulos Chilima, it is naïve for anyone to think that the Tonse Alliance is falling apart.