Signs of a clueless government
Just when Malawians thought the ministers in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration could not sink any lower, they did not disappoint on Wednesday when instead of offering solutions on how the government is dealing with murders of innocent people in Mulanje, they went to town blaming everybody but their own ineptness.
It has taken the death of six people for the government to address the nation on what is happening in the district.
But the address was as good as no address at all, going by the confusion that came out of the Central Office of Information (CoI).
That tourism to Mulanje Mountain will be affected and have far reaching consequences than the economy of one district goes without mention; that the United States (US) government has pulled out their volunteers from the district is an indication of the loss of trust in the country’s state of security should have urged the government into action.
But that was not the case.
The Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security deemed it not necessary to attend the address leaving the matter to ministers who forgot to take off their political hats and churn out what the technocrats had asked them to tell the nation.
From the press conference, one issue was clear: This government has not made use of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) that exists in this country, if you can call DPP cadets mingling with civilians at bars and bottlestores spies.
This was as good enough time to realise that the use of the National Intelligence Service is not just to produce useless reports to support allegations of treason against the opposition.
This matter has once again highlighted that this country does not have an effective intelligence service because the ministers just made it clear to the nation that they have no idea what is happening in Mulanje.
If the NIS was doing its job, the ministers of Information and Home Affairs would have known how many people are claiming to have had their blood sucked, which villages this issue originated from and also the general socio-economic status of the individuals.
A whole minister should not display his ignorance on why only one part of the country is experiencing these murders and a recurrence of the blood-sucking phenomenon.
Before addressing Malawians, these representatives of the government should have done their homework instead of telling the nation hogwash.
From their blabbering, the ministers clearly failed to address what the real issue is on this blood-sucking phenomenon, which is that people are being killed and no arrests have been made.
Merely describing the attacks as mythical does not begin to resolve the problem. Blaming the opposition for not ‘speaking out’ will not bring back to life the six productive citizens that the nation has lost.
From the media reports, it is folly for the government to dismiss these events as merely mythical. To do so would be to give credibility to the happenings and further entrench mob justice in some sections of this country that believe in witchcraft and magic.
If the government believes this issue of blood sucking is mere rumours, then the officials from that useless Ministry of Civic Education should have been deployed at the first indication of a crisis.
If the ministry has not yet gone to the areas and the presence of the Police has not worked, then the press conference should have been called to outline the next course of action.
But all indications are this government has done nothing of the sort: No provision of security or maintaining law and order and certainly no civic education, until now.
By the end of this episode, Malawians will have learnt nothing on how to deal with such issues in future and the DPP will be remembered for sleeping on the job and blaming everybody but their own failure to handle a crisis.
