In the mid-1990s, as one way of consolidating democracy in Malawi, the government set upon the process of devolution, with a stated aim of making ordinary Malawians have a say in coming up with the development they desire.<\/p>\n
The commitment was premised on the understanding that due to the nature of the central government, it lacks focus on localised needs of each area, hence it might have prioritised activities that may have little to no bearing on the people. The central government was then expected to cede some of its power and functions to authorities at local level who would exercise it on its behalf to uplift the people.<\/p>\n
The most unfortunate aspect of that aspiration is that 20 years on, after all the talk and numerous projects on decentralisation, the power still firmly rests with the central government and there is no indication it would cede it any time soon.<\/p>\n
Tentative attempts have been in some sectors the process is too slow that not many appreciate the commitment the government made over two decades ago.<\/p>\n
That the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Kondwani Nankhumwa should be hosting a workshop on the matter confirms the oft held observation that the nation is lagging in development because we are obsessed with talking than with doing.<\/p>\n
Today should never have been the moment when the nation should have been asking technocrats to speed up the process of decentralisation. Twenty years on, we should have been taking stock of what devolution has done for the nation and what else needs to be done to ensure people in local authorities benefit from the power they wield to decide their own development.<\/p>\n
But this is an eternal problem with the government, which has very grand plans but always comes short on execution. This is particularly the case with donor-led projects which suffer severely when donors pull out their resources and focus their attention elsewhere.<\/p>\n
While we are on the subject, the conduct of councillors in Chiradzulu hardly bodes well for decentralisation of authority. Councillors are supposed to be drivers of development and guardians of public resources from abuse. But if they are in the forefront of abusing resources for local development, then what will come of devolution?<\/p>\n
That notwithstanding, as the former mayor of Blantyre Noel Chalamanda has said, we have had enough talk. This is the time for total devolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the mid-1990s, as one way of consolidating democracy in Malawi, the government set upon the process of devolution, with a stated aim of making ordinary Malawians have a say in coming up with the development they desire. The commitment was premised on the understanding that due to the nature of the central government, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43900,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43897\/revisions\/43900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}