It is not surprising that the government has not swiftly responded to the threat that the armyworms pose despite the evidence of the damage caused so far.
\nJust like government has failed to respond to situations in the past \u2013 which called for urgent action — all we hear are familiar stories pointing to the fact that the government has no money to quickly respond to the situation.
\nBut for a government that must be seen to be serious, such excuses must not be entertained. We believe there should always be a Plan B but that, at the moment, cannot be seen.
\nWhat we see is that the government is still sleeping and there is no indication that someone would be responsible enough to treat the danger the armyworms pose with urgency.
\nWhile the government is sleeping, and its officials enjoying what the festive season can offer, the armyworms are spreading very fast in the fields and excuses at this point must not be tolerated.
\nAll we want to see is the government doing something about this dire situation.
\nBut as has been the case in the past, the government\u2019s focus might be elsewhere and one would question whether the government sees danger at all. We would not be wrong to suspect that someone is waiting for the worst to happen so that they can benefit from such, yet what we all know is that the right response at the right time would be enough to avert the danger.
\nTo read that more than 50 percent of the country\u2019s fields can be wiped out in six weeks is a clear indication that there is no time to waste. Only the government can explain why it is procrastinating on this when almost everyone understands that this is a serious situation which requires a swift response to save the few crops that we can.
\nMuch as we appreciate that the government might not have the resources to respond quickly \u2013 relying on donors to help as usual \u2013 they should not use that to defend themselves but instead they should find ways of intervening.
\nWhat worries us \u2013 which should be everyone\u2019s concern \u2013 is that the government is still eyeing the donors for help yet what we are told is that most of them have closed for holidays. Is waiting for donors all what the government can do?
\nAfter struggling to address the hunger situation in the past few years, the country produced enough in the past year. We are afraid the armyworms will erode the substantial gains the country made in the last growing season.
\nThis is the reason we want the government, for once, to do things differently and see the danger the armyworms pose. This is what a serious government ought to do, rather than
\nenjoying a sleep while things are getting worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is not surprising that the government has not swiftly responded to the threat that the armyworms pose despite the evidence of the damage caused so far. Just like government has failed to respond to situations in the past \u2013 which called for urgent action — all we hear are familiar stories pointing to the […]<\/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-58306","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\/58306","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=58306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58308,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58306\/revisions\/58308"}],"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=58306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}