The most worrying failure of Democratic People’s Party (DPP) first two years as a ruling party has been the absence of a stable inflation and the loss of value of the country’s currency.
The good news is that the DPP has just over three years to go before the next election and this is more than enough time to build a political team capable of winning the 2019 elections.
The point I am making is that if the economy had really improved, then no amount of hysteria from the opposition parties would make the smallest difference. The DPP and the President would do better to stop spending the little resources on press statements and releases responding or refuting or clarifying issues that every Jim and Jack raise in the public domain. This should not be the DPP’s worry.
It is because there is a general sense of economic gloom instead of the hoped for economic boom that there is enough resonance for people to be seriously worried. Every time I write about economic issues in this column, I get messages on social media telling me that I have no idea about such things and should just shut up or asking me whether I have now joined the Anti-DPP bandwagon.
But the truth is that the biggest political problem at the moment in Malawi is the economy, so as someone who thinks of me as a responsible and true citizen of Malawi, I have the constitutional right to exercise my freedom of speech and point out that there are gloomy days ahead unless we together with our leaders act.
Both the Minister of Finance and the Reserve Bank Governor seem to be right in stating that we need to fight inflation and stabilise the economy. The difference with me comes on what tools to use to revive and stabilise the economy.
Tight monetary policy that is being religiously pursued by the Reserve Bank of Malawi is not the only way. The refusal to listen to other alternative views in my opinion is sign of impunity that will take the country down the path of economic collapse.
The Reserve Bank appears not to have noticed that unless private investment picks up the economy will not either.
It is beyond understanding to continue with the delusion that FDI (foreign direct investment) is the solution, it is not. Foreign investors are useful and must be lured, but it is much more important for Malawian investors to invest, because unless they do, there is no chance of creating those elusive jobs and intermediate industries that will help the country to diversify its economy.
There is no point in travelling to foreign cities and assuring investors that Malawi is open for business if nothing changes economically on the ground in Malawi.
Unless if it becomes genuinely easier to do business, there is no chance of domestic investment picking up, and unless this happens, there is no chance of exporting and earning the much needed foreign exchange. This is the grim truth that should be confronted and higher interest rates, unstable exchange rates and runaway inflation will only give us a false sense of economic security.
The DPP and its president should worry about why infrastructure remains so bad that it is not just industry that suffers but agriculture. If farmers had access to halfway decent roads and good storage chains, the entrepreneurial skills of rural farmers would be unlocked in a way that has never happened before.
Before sitting down to write this piece, I looked at the DPP Manifesto of 2014 and found this statement on page 13: “Our collective vision is our country transformed from being a predominantly importing and consuming country to a predominantly producing and exporting country; and a food self-sufficient country where hunger is eliminated, and our agricultural primary commodities, other raw materials and minerals transformed, in the process creating jobs and new wealth for our people”.
Why do we not hear the DPP speak this kind of language anymore? It is true that the last three years of Joyce Banda’s reign left a legacy of bad governance, bad policies and an economy bedevil led by cashgate. But why has more not changed in the past two years?
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