POLITICS
PAC’s all inclusive meetings
A good part of the year saw reports about an All Inclusive Stakeholders Meeting organised by the Public Affairs Committee PAC. The outcome of the meetings and recommendations are what dominated part of the political coverage in the year 2016. As it is always the case there are some quarters that feel the meetings are important and good while others are of the view that these workshops are a waste of time and money.
The PAC all inclusive meetings are now becoming just like any other meetings where people discuss issues and make recommendations that look good on paper but are not taken on board. For instance the participants took time to bash the incumbent leadership and tried to offer solutions to some of the issues bothering Malawians like the many projects that each president introduces and once he or she is gone the good project comes to an end. Proposals were made that such initiatives should be continued by the next government, but this seemed a thorn in the flesh of the incumbent.There is not much that has been incorporated in any of their programmes.
For the current administration they can easily conclude that the meetings are aimed at giving a platform to those present to bash the government and take it to task but not to offer any solutions at all. Among other things participants were asking president Peter Mutharika to resign for being an ‘accidental’ president. It is such statements that make the incumbent feel he is being targeted. It is not surprising that the government and PAC on several occasion failed to meet to discuss the recommendations. For a government that won by only 34% of the votes cast to get in power there is no way they can welcome any recommendations that throw doubt on the capacity to deliver.
Mutharika’s UNGA attendance in 2016
Tradition requires the president to attend the United Nations General Assembly UNGA at the United Nations headquarters in New York United States of America. There is no excuse about it, the Malawi leader has to do this year in year out. But the 2016 trip was more scrutinised and the most talked about because of the secrecy surrounding the trip. From the word go the authorities never wanted to disclose the number of people on the trip. Coming from a year when 150 people were part of the delegation using tax payers money, Malawians were all ears wanting to know what the cost for the trip was and how many people made it on a trip
But being a party that enjoys sitting on vital information, the Democratic Progressive Party DPP has not disclosed how much was used on the trip. Being a poor nation that has almost nothing to show for, the government does not in any way think of having strict measures of using resources prudently. Instead the ruling DPP is well known for its large appetite for international travel and having a bigger than life entourage with some members that will not add value did exactly what people did not want. It seems this is what the ruling DPP is good at pleasing and appeasing its sympathisers with international trips at the expense of poor tax payers who are being squeezed left right and centre in search of revenue.
Asif the secrecy over the president’s entourage to the UNGA was not enough, Mutharika prolonged his stay by 15 days raising suspicions over his health. No one can surely blame those that speculated that the president was critically ill at least going by the DPP’s trend of hiding information.The DPP is well known for being economical with the truth, going by the events surrounding the death of late professor Bingu wa Mutharika where they tried by all means to hide the late president’s death.
Political Parties performance.
If not mistaken one would think Malawi has less than five political parties, but the truth of the matter is that the country boasts of more than fifty registered parties. Looking at the performance of even the most popular four political parties in a democratic Malawi there is still room for improvement. Talk of governance within the parties, political arties are failing to abide to some of the rules they made and do not have clear succession plans.
2016 therefore revealed of the many problems the main opposition party the Malawi Congress Party MCP is facing. The intra-party problems that the party is facing spell disaster . Having problems within the party on issues of leadership is what the opponents of the MCP would want to see. While the next elections may seem to be too far away what is happening in the MCP does not reflect a party that wants to get into government.
As for the United Democratic Front UDFparty it is slowly being swallowed by the ruling DPP. With the UDF president Atupele Muluzi in the cabinetsome of its member automatically moved to the government side of the national assembly. All that is left of the UDF the party that was once in power are just a few loyal members. And the situation is more less the same with the former ruling party People’s Party. With the PP leader gone since she lost in the last tripartite elections a number of people have since ditched the party. One can only picture how defections will be when we get closer to 2019.
As for the ruling DPP it all seems rosy as it is benefitting from the defections from the PP and other parties. Not that the DPP has had smoothly in 2016, it has had its own fair share of issues. On several occasions some cabinet ministers were reported to have trade barbs. For a party that is in power and has plans to stay on in power theDPP needs to be surrounded with leaders who trust each other. Again rumours of a sour working relationship between the president and the vice president do not reflect well on the party that needs to be strong for the 2019 presidential elections.
Cabinet Reshuffles and appointments
President Mutharika is clinging to his word and promises he made during the campaign towards his election into the highest office. The first citizen has indeed maintained this Malawi still has 20 ministers. However looking at a number of cabinet reshuffles that have happened in 2016 one is left speechless because it is the same crop that has revolved from one ministry to the other. It is the same faces that are in the cabinet despite some being on the list of public officers that have not declared their assets. One would have expected the mentioned ministers to be shown the exit door, gut this is not the case as they continue to enjoy the positions.
One ministry that has seen numerous firing and appointments is the ministry of Information. Since 2014 the ministry has had more than five ministers. This is unlike the other ministries like the ministry of finance which has been manned by Goodall Gondwe since the DPP came to power. The changes in the ministry of Information only show that Mutharika gives his members the post of being a government spokesperson on trial basis. It goes without saying that those appointed are only on trial basis, there is simply none in the group who does the job to the satisfaction of the Malawi leader. Recently President Mutharika fires Maliseni Ndau and appointed Nicholus Dausi as the ministry of Information. Patricia Kaliati, Jaap Mhango and kondwani Nankhumwa have also been in the same office.
National Assembly Meetings
2016 saw the National Assembly meeting several times to discuss business among other things the national budget. The pressure is on as Malawi still needs budgetary support. Continued poor economic governance is the order of the day and so is corruption and graft. The allocation also saw many ministries being underfunded including the most crucial education and health sectors having their allocations chopped. The State House went away with the usual good. The members of parliament National Assembly did too little to make sure that these two sectors received the what they deserve. The rate at which things operate in Malawi one would think we are all foreigners and would some day leave the country for good. There is simply no true meaning of being a representative of the constituents as MPs do the way the please even if it means being absent from deliberation. The only time that MPs would speak in one spirit and make sure they are all present is the time they are advocating for their salaries or loans. It goes without saying that the will to serve the people ends the moments they make it to parliament.
Legislator Councillors wrangles.
They were used to being the only leaders and in touch with grassroots. That is what it was with the Members of parliament they held all the powers and commanded all the respect. It was all rosy when there were no councillors in the picture. Former president Dr Bakili Muluzi removed all councillors and for more than ten years Malawi stayed without t local government leaders. And so the MPs had it all control of the funds and access to the grassroots. The coming in of councillors seems to have created some fears among MPs. Now they have to share the respect of the grassroots opposing to what was the case. Talk of development works 2016 reports revealed that some councillors are performing so well to the extent that MPs view the councillors as a threat.
ECONOMY
Malawi’s economy remains static for several years now, which has seen many people languishing in dire poverty.
Only a small section of the country seems insulated from the economic hardships tossing Malawi from pillar to post. The rest are victims of lopsided priorities, unsustainable expenditures to change things for the better.
Economically, in 2016 as streamed and reported by major dailies; Daily Times, Malawi News and Sunday Times of Times Group, and The Nation, The Weekend Nation and Nation on Sunday, more than half of the population remains impoverished as effects of the buying power erosion robbed them all hopes for the future.
This year review will look into how government policies trickled down economic growth, the performance of the energy sector and tobacco marketing season as it remains the country major forex and revenue collection.
Practically, economic policies the Ministry of Finance traded on, did not yield anything for the people of this nation though public reforms were feared to reduce the number of civil servants, which is hovering at 178,000 getting the 2015/2016 national budget allocation of MK198 billion close to 10% of the total.
Some economic experts argued that the public human work force was too heavy for the country to move forward as the wage bill attracted large sums of money to cater for salaries, arrears among others; hence the need to retrench some staff which was an unwelcome development that would see others losing jobs in a sort of domino effect.
The country made tentative steps to improve a delicate food situation while its inflation remained the highest in the Sadc region hovering at 23 percent.
As the country was nursing economic hardships, the press was awash with reports of Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) on fuel increases, from the beginning of the year to the end, as the current pump prices for petrol is MK824.70, diesel MK815.80 and paraffin at MK648.70 per litre respectively.
This has pushed transportation costs leading to soaring prices for goods and services, which continues impeding Malawians to achieve decent levels of income.
Inconsistences in the fiscal and monetary policies coupled with corruption and over expenditures, saw President Peter Mutharika pleading with donors such as the African Development Bank (AFDB) to resume direct budgetary support to which they have not fully responded yet.
However, with International Monitory Fund (IMF) unlocking Extended Credit Facility, was a relief for the Ministry of Finance and trickled down donor support into the developmental budget components.
The Tobacco marketing season was another nightmare for the nation to fetch much needed revenue and forex as the green gold proceeds was an insult to already stricken farmers. Heavy rejection and poor prices of the green gold earned the nation US$ 275.7 million in 2016 in forex recording an 18.1% drop from the previous year’, (2015) US$337 million.
In 2016, the Kwacha lost value by 7.1% against the US dollar in the first eight months of 2016 alone. The fall was attributed to the strengthening of the dollar against other curries as well as low tobacco prices that had negatively affected inflow of foreign currency to the country.
No wonder, the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) introduced the MK2, 000 banknotes at the end of the year.
The introduction of the new banknote on the market was received with mixed reactions saying it showed that the local currency lost value completely while some hinted that it was a good move to reduce heavy cash one was carrying for shopping.
The 2016/2017 national budget of MK1.3 trillion in June last year was unveiled amid a financial deficit and a time the nation had, and still has substantial budgetary support with nearly half of its population facing hunger.
The fiscal plan was largely premised on wrong assumptions that the economy would grow by 5.1% in 2016, a rebound from 3.1% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth recorded the preceding year.
Only until September 2016 did the government concedes to have instilled false hopes in the private sector and Malawians at large. Eventually, the treasury swallowed its pride and revised the real GDP growth rate by 2.2% points to 2.9%.
A rise in allocations to the state residences, the Office of President and Cabinet and the Greenbelt with little control on expenses raised opposition Members of Parliament (MPs)’ eyebrows that some animals may be more equal than others.
Still, there was no tangible outline of strategies towards a growth path, probably an indication that the Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe was running out of ideas; unemployment levels particularly for the youth remain high in the year.
No wonder the public greeted with stunning the Value Added Taxes (VAT) on basic food items including bread, water, milk, and soap among others. VAT introduction was done outside the national budget tax collection base.
This impacted on the already impoverished Malawians who lived a hand to mouth regime of survival.
2016 will go into the country’s history on how energy sector suffered due to shameless and painful electricity blackouts. The blackouts were experienced all most half the year paralyzing all sectors of life as most of its operations rely on electricity.
Electricity blackouts resulted in the loss of millions of kwacha in business as extra cost was incurred in purchasing diesel or petrol to run generators.
Media reports even went further exposing how blackouts cost people’s lives in public hospitals in some parts of the country where as surgical operations and maternity work could not be done well due to insufficient power.
This development comes again and again in year in and year out despite the fact that only 10 percent of the country’s population (17 million people) have access to electricity.
The country’s utility body, Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) attributed blackouts to lowering levels of water in Lake Malawi that pours into Shire River and generates hydro electrical power to the entire country.
This explanation wasn’t enough to convince Malawians considering that Lake Malawi has enough water to flow into Shire River to generate electricity by just working on falls flow designs.
Consequently, it forced government through President Mutharika’ State of the Nation address to announce short term solutions to avert electricity blackouts including procurement of 46 Mega Watts’s diesel peaking generators, which will be ready for use in Lilongwe and Mzuzu, acquiring 78 Mega Watts of Emergency Power by ESCOM on lease basis for an initial estimated period of 18 months.
While long term solutions include generation, Transmission and Distribution Expansion and Reinforcement. The carrying capacity of the Transmission Lines will increase to about 1,150MW by 2018 and a 400kV Transmission Line is currently being constructed from Phombeya (Balaka) to Nkhoma. The Line is expected to be completed by September 2018. The Phombeya Sub-Station will be the landing point for the Malawi-Mozambique Interconnector.
Not all is rosy as Malawi Investment Forum (MIF) hosted last year (2016); it was an outstanding gamble to pursue considering huge public and privates investment deals have been made that will foster the nation’s economic growth.