I am in Uganda all week this week, a complex infinitely fascination society reminiscing over convalescing from widely disputed elections.
But as I took off last Sunday the brilliant skies which I so much adore stopped had lost their attraction turning instead into dim gloom and restless stormy cloud scape in my tampered imagination.
Yes, my mind was somewhat weighed down by one lingering issue; British High Commissioner Michael Nevin’s unequivocal pronouncement of the s top page of ‘direct budgetary support’ to Malawi.
Even as I wrote this article, it was a weird mixture of nervous apprehension and hopeful joy that Her Majesty’s international aid architecture would no longer have to support the increasing weight of countless requests exerted by the government of Malawi, one time the Darling of Buckingham.
Not that Malawi was an exceptional target in this determination, reasons Nevin, but that London had shifted policy such that many more aid-desperate economies in this long screwed up Africa were no longer on the UK global development support agenda.
But there’s a caveat of hope all the same.
Aid of up to 80 million Pound Sterling is still available to my cash strapped Malawi but that such development support will come through multilateral agencies, a customary euphemism for the UN system.
And so comes to full application a ‘government bypass’ development support strategy adopted unwillingly yet to stay for unknown times. Has Cashgate got anything to do with this cessation of direct aid diplomacy? I don’t know.
Yet doubtless it has been the last straw that severed the last sinew of London’s determination to sustain decades of post-independence development diplomacy and over a century of an accidental political marriage both mutually supportive and mutually exploitative.
Boom and time up for our colonial masters to continue selflessly and gallantly to withstand the multi-faceted irregularity that has for so long characterised political leadership in my country.
Clearly, independence and the takeover of grinding poverty in 1964 have not exactly translated into integrity, commitment and sacrifice for leaders of Malawi. In some ways it’s indeed time to revise modalities for executing the essence of this commonwealth bond
Look at it carefully and you might just see that it’s time to preserve the unique personalities of two diametrically opposed systems in a partnership held together by the sheer force of history and tenuous efforts at guilt-driven moral payback
And it has been ominously declared that this secession won’t depend on improvements in anything either. It’s an irreversible global policy position which won’t ever again endanger UK tax payers’ money in any of Africa’s deliberately screwed up economies which have for far too long massaged the egos of too few at the expense of too many.
Is this a surprising development certainly not! Or is it too harsh and unforgiving, definitely not.
To honest humans with discerning minds and functioning hearts Nevin does not come through as a surprise; he is an unwilling messenger of a decision long time coming. Understand the envoy.
President Peter Mutharika, his financial planning pundits and enlightened elites out there have all foretold this day in many different ways. If you will, take it as baptism by fire but not anything else worth blaming anybody for.
Indeed with all that Malawians have been protesting over the years, its game on Mr President. It’s time to work smart not just hard.
Take it or leave it, this is self-invited turbulence in calm skies, a whipped up storm in peaceful waters. Yes, it is perhaps a good albeit painful omen for Malawians who have been locked into poverty while huge amounts of money shift banks, homes and even car boots.
With Bwana Ronald M at the helm hardening financial management practices it’s time to tighten up and accelerate all other reforms, attention Mr Vice President.
It is perfect time to make all their some decisions while public support lasts, including rationalising public service, clearing district Council rot and scrapping the Constituency Development Fund waste which is no more than MPs pocket
This is not time to entertain pain. It’s time to break ranks with shameful government failure; to seize a moment of deep shame as an opportunity to become strong, resolute and fiercely directional.
Mr President, work on your aiming skills and don’t miss the bull.
This is time for people-centred development; time to roll out policies and systems which speak to equity, inclusion and value for money. This is time to shed off excesses self-maintenance and formation of a winning team.
Mr President and cabinet are you ready to wean government from aid – at least through Treasury – and unshackle citizens from the shame of dependence?
Well you have no option, do you Mr President? It’s indeed game on and time to capitalise on experience. Be advised it is about high rise development thinking not sinking politics
Malawi has been in preparation for ‘no direct budgetary support’ since the much attached zero-deficit budget that Bingu developed for the 2011/2012 financial year.
Bingu might have been bashed and demonised but he was a head strong, brave and visionary demagogue who the entire Africa looked to. And it is ordinary knowledge isn’t it that people whose goal is to control and exploit hate brave people.
What’s there to fear if you can continue to prepare the nation for pain before pleasure, sweat before sweet desert. After all Mr President the past 24 months have not exactly been a party, have they?
Government must improve the operations of MRA, while acknowledging that the revenue base is shrinking along with a contracting economy; all the more reason for tight fiscal controls and tough prioritisation.
Depending on which school of thought you lend your brains to, Afro-western contact over the past century has been more harm than good. No need for apologies
To me colonialism, neo-colonialism, unequal post-independence partnerships and externally driven ‘carrot culture’ put together have enormously damaged developing economies most of which have yet to be grasped.
My last word: it’s game on Mr President.
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