Back Bencher

Wake up and smell the coffee, Mr. Veep!

Hon Folks, Vice President Saulos Chilima may be the champion of Public Service Reforms but he did not look good raising eyebrows on Tuesday when Construction Sector Transparency (CoST) study trained focus on the billions of kwacha government wastes on project cost overruns.

Here a project scheduled for completion in 36 months at say, K7 billion is most certainly to be done in 72 months at twice the original cost or more. That’s the norm.

In fact, such costs are embedded in the contract and although they are meant to apply to the party responsible for the delay, government seems to have normalised that it is always the culprit.

But this is inefficiency and it costs. It is also manageable and Tanzania and Rwanda are reaping the dividends of fighting inefficiency. Here, it is simply efficiently passed on to the tax-payer and there is hardly a case of any controlling officer who was held to account for it.

In fact, projects here are also fodder for another costly vice—corruption. Politicians and other highly placed folks in government use their offices to see where their dubious companies can come in as suppliers, often of sub-standard goods and services charged at twice or more the market value.

As long as such trappings yield unflinching loyalty, the presidency—itself an office which pays a modest salary, albeit tax-free, but surprisingly produces millionaires in dollar terms—simply plays along.

Former president Bakili Muluzi, on whose watch probably surfaced the first known Cashgate case of the multiparty dispensation when funds worth K187 million were swindled from the Ministry of Education in 1990s,  best encapsulated the attitude of the highest office in government towards opportunities in government.

Bashing Rolf Patel whose companies lost business with government after he had decided to quit UDF, Muluzi said “otsutsa, mutha ngati makatani” meaning those in opposition will hang on there like curtains until they eventually turn into rags. In other words, in politics, it’s never pay day until you are in government.

It’s the kind of thinking that does not fit well with the letter and spirit of the Constitution which forbids use of public office for personal gains and which also requires asset declaration to curb corrupt use of high offices in the Public Sector to amass wealth.

Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe, while presenting the 2016/17 National Budget, aptly described as “mediocrity” the tendency in government to cast a blind eye on tracking results after government expends on authorised budget lines.

He said it’s a weakness spanning all governments from that of Kamuzu Banda, Bakili Muluzi, Bingu wa Mutharika, Joyce Banda and, now, APM.

I believe the costly mess on expenditure control in government is a sign of betrayal of trust by those entrusted with the management of public revenue which goes into Account Number One from the sweat of its citizens saddled with a statutory obligation to pay the bill willy-nilly.

If an inefficiently executed project costs twice or more, the bill is simply pushed to the taxpayer while politicians at the Capital Hill claim all the credit for the new road, bridge, hospital, etc.

Now the rubber-band has been stretched to the limit—donors are scaling-down on aid, electricity attracts commercial tariffs pegged to the US dollar and potable water attracts the dreaded 16.5 percent Value Added Tax (VAT) besides being sold at commercial rates.

Yet our woes are multiplying by the day—6.5 million people will die unless given free food yet           La Nina weather conditions which come with more rain and disaster due to floods just might wreak havoc again this year.

Despite myriad taxes that chop our miserable incomes by half, government is still failing to deliver quality services in education, health, agricultures and virtually all other sectors. Its employees are disgruntled with the rising cost of living, just like the rest of us.

Unless—APM and Chilima—occupants of the presidency, smell the coffee and provide the John Magufuli type of leadership in cost-cutting, fighting corruption and investing in productive areas, I shudder to imagine the legacy they will leave to posterity.

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