PREVIEW
It is now obvious that the former ruling party the People’s Party PP is no longer the same mighty party that it used to be. It seems to be losing its popularity each passing day. All this has been attributed to the massive loss of the party during the 2014 tripartite election which its leader Dr Joyce Banda lost miserably, thereby getting the reputation of being the first sitting in president in a democratic Malawi to suffer so badly in an election.
Now the PP is on the verge of collapsing. The continued absence of its leader who has been outside Malawi for more than 10 years has not also contributed to the downfall. Many are patiently waiting for the coming for the party leader who will perhaps guide in rebuilding the party to regain its lost glory.
With the opening of the tobacco season, many people’s expectations are that there is going to be a lot of foreign currency in circulation. But this is so far has not been the case because the market has just opened many people wait with hope that things will change for the better.
Food security reports show increase prices of maize the staple even at this time when people are harvesting. This is a sign that the grain will reach a point that many will not afford to purchase it. All this is because there is low supply due to the shortage.
Both civil society and religious groups spoke against the xenophobic attacks. Malawians have also been victims of the recent spate of attacks by South Africans. The civil society condemns these acts of violence against fellow Africans in strongest terms.
In the education sector concerns over the delays of teacher’s salaries continued to appear in the press. It seems no lasting solution to this problem has been found yet. A salary acts alike a motivation factor for many, now the delay has bad effects on the service delivery of those affected.
The health sector continues to be haunted by congestion in hospitals. If it is not the referral hospitals then it is some health centre or some district hospitals. The situation is worse for public health facilities that are in the boarder districts because they share the space with foreigners.
One thing is clear in the environment sector, illegal ivory trade has greatly contributed to the decreasing number of elephants. The population o f elephants has continued to dwindle in recent years and poachers are the main culprits of the situation.
POLITICS
After suffering a heavy loss in the 2014 Tripartite Election former president Joyce Banda who is also president of the People’s Party PP is no where to be seen in Malawi. For ten months the former Malawi leader has not been in Malawi and this has raised questionsnot only within her party but also to outsiders and other observers. Mrs Banda suffered a shameful loss in the 2014 elections thereby setting a record of being the first sit in president to be ushered out of power with wide margin.
Concerns have also arisen from the People’s Party PP which now seems to be a nonentity barely three years after its formation. The continued absence of its leader seems also to have contributed to the present status of the party. This is because the party is operating without its leader. Former president Joyce Banda is reported to have called members of the National Executive Committee to have a meeting in South Africa which they did an action that has raised a lot of suspicions among some Malawians.
Meanwhile the party’s second vice president Harry Mkandawire has resigned from the party saying he cannot continue being a member of the party that is associated with the cash gate scandal. The People’s Party PPwas the reigning government when the news of massive plunder of government resources came out. It therefore is not surprising that someobservers have always associated the PP with the cash gate scandal.
Press reports have disclosed that the PP president is set to return to Malawi very shortly. Banda has been engaged is some international activities and getting awarded honorary degrees. She still remains a woman with high esteem beyond the boarders atleast going by the respect she is accorded on the international scene. Her return to Malawi would perhaps mean a resuscitation of a party that is on the verge of collapsing.
While the resigning of Harry Mkandawire may sound good it has also raised question among some political analysts. Some analysts have noted that while the gesture may be a good one but the timing is not good all. The resignation could have carried more weight if Mkandawire did this in the heat of things when the PP was in power. Now that he has done this at a time the PP has lost its sting and is not in power many feel he is just like any other politician who runs away from their party when all is not well.
In a bid to paint a good picture on economic governance, government reported trimmed ministers’ allowances.It has been said on several occasions that the ministers and their counterparts in the National Assembly earn way too much in a country that is not so rich. Therefore the reduction of allowances could be the best thing that many people have been hoping for.
President Peter Mutharika’s external travel to the United States of America in April caused a lot questions and debates among Malawians. According to media reports it was not clear what exactly the president was going to do in the United States of America since some social media networks had indicated the function he was going to attend had already taken place.
Law experts have disclosed that presidential powers can easily be trimmed. Of all the presidents that Malawi has had, it is only the incumbent president that has shown interest in having his powers trimmed. This is the first time that a president in the democratic Malawi has shown interest to trim his powers. A number of sectors have since welcomed the president’s stand.
Some observers have said it could be nice if the present parliament used this chance to make this a policy. It is not a secret that the presidency means too much power, therefore if the present one is interested in trimming his powers the people should have taken this opportunity to make this a policy. However some legal experts have advised that this can be done overnight if the president is willing. It does not require too many processes because the president can just announce it. According to the experts if there is a willing president he can only say it there and then and the powers can be trimmed.
ECONOMY
Press reports on the economy have disclosed that the Malawi economy is unstable. It is still not yet at that level where it can be said to be strong and stable. The Malawi nation still has a long way to go inorder to reach the level of being called a stable economy. Malawi has among other things also been reported as one of the poorest nations in the world. Now the fact that Malawians still mainly rely on donor funding even for its national budget as the revenue generated locally cannot solely sustain some of the programmes. This scenarios confirms the fact that Malawi is surely not economically stable.
In the meantime other economic reports continued to show the negative side of the economy. For a very long time Malawi has been trying to revive and improve the economy through exports, but to no avail. Late President Proffesor Bingu wa Mutharika tried his level best to turn around Malawi’s economy being a seasoned economist himself but to no avail. Late Mutharika tried to change Malawi from an importing nation to an exporting nation he died faster than his dream and ambitions could come to pass. The country’s exports are said to be dwindling now instead of increasing.
The less exports Malawi is making, it means there is again less income made from he exports in form of foreign currency. Malawi needs to have more foreigncurrency from the exports. Therefore any reduction in the exports has a bearing on the availability of forex. It should be noted that Malawi’s main foreign exchange earner is tobacco. In recent years the tobacco industry has been facing hiccups meaning it is not doing so well on the international market.
So many factors have led to the present status of the tobacco industry one of which is the increasing anti-tobacco smoking campaign. This has had a great impact on the demand for the gold leaf and therefore contributed to the dwindling figures of exports. Since time immemorial Malawi has heavily relied on the tobacco industry as the main foreign exchange earner , and now the sudden change of demand globally due to the World Health Organisation campaign has put Malawi at a disadvantage in terms of forex earnings from the crop.
On a similar note it is now over twenty years since advocacy work started on the Labour Tenancy Bill and to date it has not reached the chambers of parliament. According to the Centre for Social Concern tenants in tobacco farms across the nation continue to have poor living and working conditions despite all the contribution they make to the industry. Over twenty years is just too much for advocacy work to keep going on and failing to meet the intended goal. Findings of several surveys show the worst forms of living and working conditions of the tenants and the best that Malawi could do is to pass the bill.
FOOD SECURITY
Malawi faces yet another hunger situation after some years of bumper harvest. Coming from weeks of heavy flooding that swept crops from more than ten districts, Malawi is in a poor situation in as far as food security is concerned. Estimates show that maize production has declined by 70%. Coupled with heavy flooding and a dry spell in the crucial weeks of maize production, the harvest has really gone down.
Evidence has already been shown in the months of harvest where maize is expected to be cheap in normal circumstances, there is less maize on the market. A monthly survey by the Centre For Social Concern CFSC on the cost of living shows that some traders are hording the staple grain waiting for the right moment when they can sell it at greater profits. Looking at the levels of income of the majority of Malawians, it is going to be too difficult for many to afford the grain when unscrupulous traders decide to capitalise on the scarcity of the grain to reap the poor off.
Following reports of a food shortage in Malawi the World Food Programme WFP announced it was ready to rescue Malawi from the impending hunger. It is obvious that millions of people will be affected by the hunger situation and therefore the WFP’s assurance will at least ease the situation.
A number ofstakeholders have spoken against the Fertilizer Subsidy Programme FISP. Ithas many flaws and is becoming less popular each passing day. But then even though this is the case, government still has no plans yet of scrapping this programme off. From opposition political leaders to the international community and other individual the song has always been that Malawi should be finding an exit strategy. At present Malawi has no solution in sight of what would take the place of FISP.
On several sittings of parliament politicians have spoken of the need to get rid of the FISP or better still improve it. With so many flaws that the programme face stakeholders have always spoken against theFISP. Not only does it drain the resources in the National budget but it is failing to make people graduate from being very reliant on chemical fertilizers. As if this is not enough many people are also concerned with the fact that the programme is highly politicised as any of the governments that come to govern Malawi feel they cannot do without the FISPand so they still fund it in order to gain political mileage.
On the same note the World Bank also commented on the FISP saying though it digs deep into the Ministry of agriculture funding, there is little that can be shown to have been gained through the programme. The fact it takes over 70% of the ministry’s funding, has contributed heavily to the any worked of reducing poverty. With so much resources being given to the FISP farmers and some have insufficient food as other are still very poor despite benefiting from the FISP
CIVIL SOCIETY AND RELIGIOUS GROUPS
Civil society in Malawi reacted to the xenophobic attacks on foreigners in South Africa with a lot of condemnation. At a time when South Africa is healing from the pangs of apartheid, the story is different; the rainbow nation is onto foreigners killing them for snatching their jobs. Malawians living in South Africans have also not been spared. It is for this reason that the civil society organised a match to show their disappointments.
In the same vein the Consumers Association of Malawi CAMA as a consumer rights body staged a campaign called Black Friday. The campaign enforced a total blackout on South African owned shops mainly Game Stores and Shoprite. With the blessing of the government and all stakeholders the Black Friday campaign happened successfully with reported cases of any incidents. But did the civil society drive the point home to the perpetrators of black apartheid. That is the big question that needs answers as the safety of some Malawians in the Rainbow nation continue to be at risk.
A number of regional and continental and regionalbodies have spoken against the xenophobic attacks. The SADC council for NGOs and the African Union whose chair is a South African also strongly condemned the xenophobic attacks. Not only has it dented South Africa’s image it has also partly ruined the relationships that are there between national that migrated there and the locals. This is the second spate of xenophobic attacks that happened in recent years.
Although Malawi’s democracy is quite new, Malawians have witnessed aboom in the civil society industry. Unlike in some countries where the CSOs operate in fear, in Malawi the story is different. With the right procedures people are able to operate in Malawi as civil societies. It in the same vein that the Minister of Justice reported at the 56th session of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights in Gambia recently. It is evident that in Malawi the civil society are allowed to operate freely.
In the month of April the European Union encouraged the media to continue with their role of promoting accountability in Malawi. Coming from a background of a one party state where the media was mouth piece of the government, the current state of affairs in the way the media operate shows there has indeed been an improvement. The environment at present gives the media a chance to do their job and therefore a need to do it to the best of the profession.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL LIFE
Traditional leaders in April took a swipe at the civil society for the poverty that Malawians are facing. According to the traditional leaders many people are in poverty because of local non governmental organisations that start projects aiming at ending people’s poverty when in actual sense it is the NGO leaders poverty thatthey are ending. The traditional leaders are wary that the poverty levels of the people that are expected to be benefitiaries of the projects are still in dire poverty.
Talk of poverty in Malawi is the order of the day because this is what people face each passing day. Going by the statement made by the Centre For Social Concern CFSC disclosed that rural unemployment is fuelling poverty. The unemployment levels are very high in Malawi and this is visibly seen by the number of people who just linger around without any forms of employment. Without any employment many people have no known means of gaining an income resulting in high levels of poverty.
In the heat of the xenophobic attacks by South Africans which also affected Malawians, some observers also noted that it is the same issue of poverty for both perpetrators and the migrants. If there were jobs readily available many in various nations people would not have opted to leave their mother land and work in a foreign land. This is great evidence that unemployment levels in almost all the countries in this part of Africa.
The government of Malawi was therefore commended for repatriating the victims of xenophobia with haste. Government hired buses that ferried people from South Africa to Malawi. Surprisingly some of the repatriated people only chose to stay in Malawi for some days and decided to go back. Press reports have shown that over 50 were arrested as they were trying to go back to South Africa barely days after being repatriated. Much as authorities have no control over the choices that people make whether to go back or stay in Malawi but then going back so soon demeans government’s efforts.