It is not just unbridled arrogance that makes people such as Hetherwick Ntaba and Gresseder wa Jeffrey show utmost disrespect to honest and hardworking Malawians who are protesting DPP\u2019s rampant abuse of impoverished parastatals and state companies by bullying them to donate millions of kwacha through the now infamous Blue Nights.<\/p>\n
The party also feels that it alone, with sycophants and hand-clappers, is entitled to the resources that we all generate in this country to satisfy the party\u2019s selfish intentions.<\/p>\n
That is why you have DPP characters such as Ntaba and Jeffrey wanting to wave away those who stand up to be counted on the matter by calling them rubbish and chamba smokers.<\/p>\n
They do this because they know in their hearts that what they are doing is wrong, but are not man or woman enough to put a stop to it.<\/p>\n
They resort to disrespectful behaviour because they want to silence Malawians and subdue them into submission to accept this gross abuse of public resources.<\/p>\n
The culture of insulting Malawians who exercise their right of expression and impart the same on others is rampant in the DPP and it starts with President Peter Mutharika, who the other day in Mzuzu called Malawians who point out that his government practices nepotism and tribalism stupid.<\/p>\n
I would be comfortable if he could prove to Malawians that they [Malawians] are wrong by using facts and figures, instead of using intimidation, which I find very debase and un-presidential in nature.<\/p>\n
Which leader in this day and age calls the electorate stupid, just because he does not agree with them?<\/p>\n
But the idea behind this, I repeat, is to silence Malawians.<\/p>\n
That is why calls by civil society organisations (CSOs) for the DPP to return the money have landed on deaf ears and been met with unbridled arrogance and impunity.<\/p>\n
Seeing this, CSOs want to file a court case to force the DPP to return the money.<\/p>\n
It has become apparent in this country that court cases, strikes and protests on the streets are the only language that the Mutharika government will listen to for things to change.<\/p>\n
The Malawi Law Society was very clear this week that, even in law, the DPP\u2019s action to ransack parastatals is the worst form of abuse of power.<\/p>\n
But the DPP cannot listen to this because it feels it is entitled to do whatever it wants to do with this country because it won the 2014 elections.<\/p>\n
Because of that fact, they behave as if this country belongs to them alone and the rest of us must just watch while they ruin it for their own benefit.<\/p>\n
It does not matter to them that, in the process, our lives are affected.<\/p>\n
We have now reached a point where some Malawians are drinking water mixed with sewer in Area 18 in Lilongwe because the Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) does not have money to replace its broken pipes.<\/p>\n
And, yet, this is the organisation the DPP continues to demand money from. Indeed, this is the organisation that donates tens of millions of kwacha.<\/p>\n
Malawians are constitutionally entitled to hold an opinion and express the same to impart it on others.<\/p>\n
There is one fact that the DPP seems not to appreciate and that is, this country belongs to all people who live in it and not only those who hold the mandate to govern.<\/p>\n
That is why we, as citizens, must endeavour to seek solutions to stop a government or a ruling party which is intoxicated with arrogance and impunity, from abusing public resources.<\/p>\n
The decision by the CSOs, who want to get a court order to force the DPP to refund the money it got from struggling and impoverished parastatals, is the way to go.<\/p>\n
DPP cannot claim that these parastatals give the money voluntarily when Malawians know that they are bullied into doing it all the time.<\/p>\n
In fact, it is a load of rubbish to make that suggestion and a typical example of taking Malawians for granted, something the DPP is good at.<\/p>\n
Which parastatal CEO can say no to a ruling party\u2019s request for a donation? Were we not told that sometimes cheques are returned to parastatals when the figures are deemed too small with the view that they be topped up?<\/p>\n
But, somehow, we, Malawians, must stop this unending cycle of abuse of office.<\/p>\n
We bear the full brunt of poor services being offered by these struggling parastatals, which, more often than not, is occasioned by their lack of financial resources due to DPP\u2019s rampant abuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is not just unbridled arrogance that makes people such as Hetherwick Ntaba and Gresseder wa Jeffrey show utmost disrespect to honest and hardworking Malawians who are protesting DPP\u2019s rampant abuse of impoverished parastatals and state companies by bullying them to donate millions of kwacha through the now infamous Blue Nights. The party also feels […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52008","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=52008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52009,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52008\/revisions\/52009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}