In town, there are huge billboards of President Peter Mutharika staring grimly at us. On the billboards is a message demanding hard work, patriotism and integrity from all of us.
I doubt if Malawians take time to read the message on the huge billboards because since the billboards were placed, our integrity as a nation is eroding fast. You do not need to walk a yard to meet a crook in the country. We have millions of damned crooks at Capital Hill, in worship places, in civil society organisations, in newsrooms, in hospitals, banks, in the Malawi Defence Force, in the Police and all the places you can think of.
We have become a celebrated nation of crooks such that we can’t even trust anyone, not even ourselves.
For the past months, there has been talk about the mega Salima-Lilongwe Water Project. A good number of people have expressed their outright scepticism and pessimism about this glorified project. To the doubters, the project is a risky venture that might even end up with the country losing billions of kwacha. I have my take.
Three months ago, I was in Lilongwe for three days. Two of the three days I was in the Capital City, the taps were dry. Obviously, every person who claims sanity can tell that Lilongwe needs water and that has to be done fast.
However, I will be a damned idiot to be convinced that the water crisis in Lilongwe is too much such that the government or whoever is at the centre of it should cut corners in the project to pump water from Salima to Lilongwe.
We are not talking about a toilet building project but a massive project worth close to K400 billion, and this is not small change. The way the project has been handled by the government and the reaction by the main opposition party Malawi Congress Party and some backstreet civil society organisations leave me suspicious about the deal.
As I said earlier, Lilongwe needs water but this need, I am afraid, might be another chance for another grand loot of public resources. Unless someone had been in a trance the past few months but those that have been awake, the script of the Salima- Lilongwe Water Project reads like the one about the dubious Malawi –Zambia maize deal. In the latter, if you need a generous reminder, the government created a false alarm about an impending hunger crisis that they made us believe would affect about half of the country’s population. So, after the false alarm, the looting chain came to work with top government officials deliberately skipping procedures, some forging documents and all crooked means. It was only later that we learnt the hunger situation was fake and the deal was another mafia plan.
The Salima-Lilongwe water deal, if we will not be careful will be another dummy on us. That is if it is not one already. The way the government is reacting, one can easily tell that something is not right. To scare us into accepting the project, the government will constantly remind us of the water crisis in Lilongwe just like it did with the fake hunger situation.
And there is something else this water project has revealed. It is now, to me, that I have come to believe that as citizens, we must stop thinking there is a political party in this country which has the welfare of citizens at heart. It is about them and they are ready to keep quiet or defend the indefensible as long as there is money at stake.
Look here, the Salima- Lilongwe Water Project was awarded to Khato Civils Limited, a company owned by the business magnate Simbi Phiri. The free-talking Simbi Phiri revealed that he has ever given money to both the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Malawi Congress Party. MCP’s Secretary General Eisenhower Mkaka confirmed Simbi Phiri’s revelation but the DPP—being congenital liars as it is known—mumbled some rebuttal, but the truth is what Simbi Phiri said.
So, you see the MCP is very afraid to speak against the project simply because the party is afraid that it might not please Simbi Phiri. What this tells you is simply that the MCP, too, cannot be taken seriously as an alternative party to form government. Ok, it is not like the MCP must be opposing everything just for the sake of it. But to those who can easily analyse situations, the reaction of the MCP was influenced by the kwacha power.
I said the other day that no political party should come to me to convince me that it is clean and will take Malawians to Canaan. After the crooks that are in government leave, another set of crooks will come in to loot then leave.
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