The fallacy of Malawi's independence

July 6, 1964. A young man, less than 24 hours old, abandons his maiden name, Nyasaland, adopts a strange name, Malawi, and departs from his elder guardian’s care into a world he knew nothing about.


And the young man saw that deserting the elder guardian’s care was not enough!


The young man, consequently- having retired from his elder guardian’s care for the unknown bush- shrugged off all the Black Jack’s hooks that clung to his only shirt, opting for the heat emitted by the fragile rays of a rising sun!


Thus, in a village half-known to the world, a new nation was born. Malawi!


Did Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797), the legal expert, politician and author realize that this was bound to happen, anyway, when he said, “But when subjects, by a long course of such ill conduct, are once thoroughly inflamed, and the state itself violently distempered, the people must have some satisfaction to their feelings more solid than sophistical speculation on law and government”?


He might have known.




The road to hope

If not, why did people like Rev. John Chilembwe (1871 – 1915)- who, some historians argue, inflamed the seeds of nationalism when he led the natives of Chiradzulu in rebellion against Thangata system (bonded labour)), hut tax, and other ills on 23 January, 1915- rise up against the British authorities?


Burke argues, in his ‘Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol’, that “I am, and ever have been, deeply sensible of the difficulty of reconciling the strong presiding power, that is so useful towards the conservation of a vast, disconnected, infinitely diversified empire, with that liberty and safety of the provinces which they must enjoy, or they will not be provinces at all.”


Indeed, it is the shortfalls, and excesses, of the diversified British Empire that begum to inflame and disorient the natives, culminating in the fight for Malawi’s independence- pressure that bore fruit on 6 July 1964.


The British Empire- so outstretched and magnanimous - could no longer cope up with the demands of a ‘vast, disconnected, infinitely diversified empire’, a responsibility that came with the prestige of being the ‘elder guardian’ of many peoples. And, as destiny would have it, that responsibility started to wane when, in the 1950s, agitations for independent rule increased.


What hastened this state of affairs was the colonial rulers’ ill-fated decision to form the Federation of Nyasaland and Rhodesia in 1953, bringing Northern Rhodesia (modern Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Malawi into an unholy alliance that was doomed to fail due to opposition from nationalists.


Proponents of independence had their ranks strengthened when Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who had been studying medicine in the United States of America, returned home on 6 July, 1958. So determined was Banda to break “the stupid federation of Nyasaland and Rhodesia” that he accepted to become the leader of the National African Congress [Nac –the modern day Malawi Congress Party (MCP)]. The Nac was a child of the educated Nyasaland elite who wanted more freedoms and expressed their grievances- first through natives’ associations and, then, the Nac- with willful force.


And, for his daring spirit, Banda was arrested and sent to Gwelo Prison in Zimbabwe- only to be released in 1960, so he could attend a constitutional conference in London, United Kingdom. After that, it was journey-started for the MCP, which went on to score an overwhelming victory when elections for a new Legislative Council were held on 15 April 1961.


This victory, and growing calls for self-rule, prompted the British government to offer Nyasaland self-governing status in 1963, a development borne out of November 1962 Constitutional Conference held in London. And, as promised, Banda assumed the position of Prime Minister on 1 February 1963, though he did not become the de facto leader because the British administrators maintained a strong hold on key aspects such as judicial, financial, and security operations.


Chances of Nyasaland finally detaching herself from Britain then grew following the adoption of a new constitution in May 1963, and the subsequent abolition of the Federation of Nyasaland and Rhodesia on 31 December 1963. The implication was that, as the new day dawned on the Land of the Lake, a new nation was born. Within seven months, on 6 July 1964, the former British colony became a member of the Commonwealth.


It had been a long journey; a journey that ended in favour of the British by chance. While the Portuguese reached this part of Africa much earlier, with records stretching their presence as earlier as the 16th Century, it was Scottish missionary Dr. David Livingstone’s 1859 visit to Lake Nyasa that titled the stakes in favour of the British!


And Livingstone’s troubles were rewarded 32 years later when the British government declared Nyasaland a protectorate in 1891.


However, it was until 1966 that the prodigal son (Malawi) adopted a new constitution that paved the way for a one party state. And it was Banda, who had become the symbol of Malawi’s enduring spirit, who became the first President.


But his road, like the colonial one before it, had to reach a point of no-through road. That happened when Malawians voted in favour of multiparty democracy during the Referendum of June 1993.


And, what had, for 30 years, been a single party state stretched into a democracy after the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections of May 1994. The electorate gave the United Democratic front (UDF) the mandate to rule democratic Malawi by electing 82 of its 177 Parliamentary candidates to the National Assembly.


But, in spite of the UDF’s third successive victory in the Presidential elections of 2004, the party was dealt a heavy blow when its winning presidential candidate, Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika, announced on February 5, 2005 that he had dished the party because its leaders were frowning upon his zero tolerance for corruption crusade.


Thus, just in the nick of time, the UDF became an elections’ winning opposition party! Mutharika later formed the Democratic Progressive Party (MCP), prompting seasoned politicians such as former Speaker of the National Assembly Sam Mpasu to question the logic of forming a political party while in government. His argument was that one “forms a political party in order to get into government, instead of getting into government in order to form a political party”.


It was a puzzle. Really. A puzzle replayed on the DPP following Mutharika’s sudden death on 5 April 2012. His DPP had been a ruling party on this day, only to be pushed to the opposition benches in Parliament when President Joyce Banda was sworn in on April 7. Her Peoples Party moved from being an aspiring ruling party to a ruling party.


Such have been some of the jig-saws strewn along Malawi’s independence path.





Contrasting signs

However, while the country has made strides in improving the living standards of its people, the path has been thorny for a large part. In their ‘Democracy Report for Malawi’, for example, Dr. Wiseman Chirwa et al aptly observe: “The 1990s witnessed a remarkable surge in civil society in unmistakable stages of development, but which in the end failed to act in concert with the state to pursue a socio-economic programme.


“The population labours heroically to make a living by scarce means; adult literacy is 57 percent (42 percent for women), infant mortality is high, and nutritional indicators are subject to the harvest and vagaries of household income”.



As a result, “Malawi is among the poorest and most foreign-indebted countries in the world, nine-tenths of all people making a living from low-productivity agriculture…Less than half of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) comes from agriculture, though the high-value segment of the sector provides 90 percent of exports. Industry accounts for 12 percent of GDP; a third is agro-based for export.



“In the decades since Independence, Malawi has partaken of the continent's sharp fluctuations in growth. In the manner of other sub-Saharan countries, it has had to reform its economy without much improvement of its meagre productive base. Acute inflation and stagnant peasant agriculture characterise the economy. Creating jobs, guaranteeing food, strengthening in

frastructure for production, correcting mal-distribution, and reining in prices are priority socio-economic tasks in this young democracy.”



Until that is done, however, the living conditions among ordinary citizens will continue to be dire.



However, other researchers have been more sympathetic to Malawi’s situation. In his article, ‘Economic developments in Malawi Since Independence’, published in the Journal of Southern African Studies (Vol. 2, No. 1), Simon Thomas observes that, “ideally, the actual performance of the economy should be compared with its potential, but, given the possibility of different objectives by policy makers, this potential has no uniquely defined meaning.”


Adds Thomas: “To compare the situation before and after independence is likely to be meaningless if either the objectives of policy or external economic environment have radically altered. An alternative approach might be to compare Malawi’s economic policies and performance with that of a country with similar resources and objectives, but no similar country exists for such a comparison to be made.”


This notwithstanding, documents from the Ministry of Finance indicate that the country’s economy continues to perform relatively well against its own history, as seen when Malawi maintained single-digit inflation during the later part of Mutharika’s regime.


The domestic debt got sliced as well, from 25 percent of GDP in 2004 to 11.6 percent of GDP in the 2010/2011 fiscal year; with the budget deficit being reduced from 7.8 percent of GDP in 2003/2004 financial year to 1.5 percent of GDP in 2010/2011 financial year.


While economic, political and social commentators may continue to debate the pros and cons of judging Malawi’s performance, what is clear is that the pillar of independence is now of 49 years’ standing.




The road to nowhere

Even though Malawians purchased their freedom after a long struggle, and constructed their pillar of independence using the moisture in their blood, there is little to show for their pain- at least in some social and economic respects.


For the ordinary citizen, the road to sustainable development has had various windings, raising doubts that citizens’ aspirations were about to be met. It is like the nation has abandoned the right path.


After all, didn’t Voltaire (1694 – 1778) not warn “That a right line, which is a right line so long as it is finite, by changing infinitely little its direction, becomes an infinite curve; and that a curve may become infinitely less than another curve”?


Taking the ‘right line’ to be development, can we say that we have stayed the course when public projects whose funding has been approved by Parliament go unimplemented?


The Centre for Social Concern (CfSC) sums this well when, in its ‘Policy Brief No. 1: The Paradox of Continuous Foreign Borrowing in a Rash of Stalled debt Sponsored Projects’, it observes that a number of health care service and road construction projects have been abandoned after due Parliamentary approval.


Mathias Burton Kafunda of CfSC’s Economic Governance Programme observes that the government should take the flak for this. “The reasons for the rash of stalled or abandoned debt sponsored infrastructural and other projects across the country are often not too far to seek. For one, there is the poor performance by the government itself. For decades Malawi’s reform efforts to make an impact with foreign borrowed money have been Tango 1-2-3 movements: One step forwards, two sideways and three backward.



“There is no penalty within government for bad borrowing decisions or poor project implementation. And in respect of improving delivery of ‘pro-poor’ services, the mindset of the


Political/bureaucratic elite is similar to Rhet Butler’s famous last words in Gone with the Wind:


‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’. The accountability of government officials to the citizens is far more attenuated; in effect, it is utterly non-existent.”



This lack of accountability and neglect manifests itself in Neno district, probably the only fully-fledged district without a tarred road in Malawi. Save for the modern health facilities erected by the Clinton/Hunter Foundation, the district would have been the cold spot on the Warm Heart of Africa.



Another district that has borne the brunt of neglect is Phalombe. Although Parliament approved a US$7 million (approximately K2.3 billion) debt from Badea (a grouping of Arabic governments), the people of Phalombe continue to depend on private hospitals. Apart from the living, the dead also suffer- as their lifeless bodies are often ambulanced to Mulanje District Hospital or Zomba Central Hospital for storage.


But one other feature that betrays the term independence is the lack of lights (neon or otherwise) on bill boards announcing one’s arrival to a city, district, or town assembly. When local or foreign tourists drive into a different administrative area, they are more likely to miss the message ‘Welcome to Chikhwawa/Salima/or Nkhotakota’ at night because of the lack of lights.


No wonder that one foreign tourist, British citizen Michael Robinson, once asked me after we had driven past Chia Lagoon on our way from Salima to Nkhotakota Zero-Point (Central Business District): “So, where is the demarcation between Salima District and Nkhotakota?”


I told him it was the bill board we had driven past some five minutes, or so, before. He could not contain his laughter (read, mockery). He has missed the ‘Welcome to Nkhotakota message’ because it was dark outside. Robinson then schooled me on the meaning of lights, saying they symbolized the presence of people.


“If there are no lights, the way it is in most parts of Malawi, it means that the people there are dead,” Robinson said, to my chagrin.


The only time these light-less welcoming billboards are visible at night is when light from the headlights of an on-coming vehicle reflects against the billboards, revealing the ‘Welcome to…’ words. In which case, the headlights represent foreign influence because, without them, the message on the billboard remains invisible and thus dead.


Which raises the question: Can the dead claim to be independent?


Indeed, what is the meaning of independence when the aid budget in Malawi contributes up to 38 percent of GDP , which goes further to reveal our degree of dependence? What is the value of independence when the influence of bilateral and multilateral donors remains enormous? Is it Malawi that introduced Structural Adjustment Programmes against its own will, for example?


To say the truth, the country is indebted to foreign governments and donors. In the 2012/13 fiscal year- to quote Budget Document Number 5’s Draft Estimates of Expenditure on Recurrent and Capital Budget for the Financial Year 2013/14- year-on-year interest on foreign debt amounted to K3.9 billion, and will hit K5.2 billion in the 2013/14 national budget.


It is estimated that the figure will inflate during the 2014/15 fiscal year, hitting K8.4 billion.


The fact that interest on domestic debt in the 2012/13 fiscal year hit K28.9 billion- and is expected to hit K30.3 billion in the 2013/14 budget, and K35.0 billion in the 2014/15 fiscal year- only buttresses the point that the citizens of independent Malawi are forever dependent on others!


Consumer rights activist, John Kapito, says that poverty and the heavy yoke of debt may forever weigh down Malawi’s fragile back because of greed among politicians.


“Politicians think only of themselves. They get into the government poorer than a church mouse, and get out extravagantly richer. Our leaders think not of people but themselves. They are guided by greed,” Kapito says.







Untying the tentacles of greed

Did Kapito say greed?


The great philosopher, Aristotle, in the Fifth Book of his ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, observes that greed is the “extreme opposite of justice”.


To which the great Italian poet and politician, Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321), adds: “Greed ignores man himself and seeks other things, but charity ignores all other things and seeks God and man, and consequently man’s good.”


Freedom, adds Dante, consists of being ruled by reason and in living for the goal of mankind.


“We must realise that the basic principle of our freedom is freedom to choose, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds. For they go only so far as to say freedom of choice is freedom of will in judging. This is true, but they do not understand its import. They talk as our logicians do, who for their exercises in logic constantly use certain propositions, such as ‘A triangle has three angles equal to two right angles’ (they just confuse people). ”


The implication of this observation is that, even after collectively toppling the colonial regimes that presided over the affairs of Africa after the Partition of Africa (set rolling after the Berlin Conference of 1884 – 1885), post-independence leaders rule simply because they want to unify their people, other than bringing real development to them. And, soon, excitement turns into murkiness as citizens’ hopes falter.


Which brings us to the conclusion made by one author, long before Malawi came into existence.


“But”, observed Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778), author of books such as ‘Discourse on the Origin of Inequality’ (1755) and ‘The Social Contract’ (1762), “in truth, what else was to be expected? Every community without laws and without rulers, every union formed and maintained by nothing better than chance, must inevitably fall into quarrels and dissensions at the fist change that comes about.”


May be this change- after colonialism and one party rule- was the democratic government that came into force in 1994. But, like those before it, the citizens have not, really, benefitted, and all the democratic regimes are bound to fall ‘at the first change that comes about’.


May be this state of affairs could be blamed on the governance systems adopted by the leaders. Emmanuel Kant (1724 – 1804), in his tell-it-as-it-is book ‘Perpetual Peace’ (written in 1795 when he was 71 years old) observes that there are some three notable maxims that leaders who are bound to fall follow, namely: Fac et excusa (First do and then excuse); Si fecisti nega (Deny whatever you have committed); Divide et impera (divide and govern).


According to Kant, leaders who adopt the Fac et Excusa concept “seize every favourable opportunity of usurping a right over their own state, or a neighbouring state. After the action, its justification may be made with greater ease and elegance…”


The Si fecisti nega type, however, deny whatever they have committed. “For instance, if you have reduced your people to despair, and thus to rebellion, do not confess it was through your fault. Place all (blame) to the account of the stubbornness of your subjects. If you have taken possession of a neighbouring state, maintain that the fault lies in the nature of man, who, if he is not anticipating, will certainly seize upon the fortunes of another.”


But it is the Divide et impera type that is funny. “If there exists among a people certain privileged chiefs who have conferred upon you sovereign power (primus inter pares), set them at variance with each other, embroil them with the people. Favour the latter and promise them more liberty, and all will soon depend on thy will. Or if your views extend to foreign states, excite discord among them; and, under pretense of always assisting the weaker, you will soon subject them all, one after the other.”


It is these leadership qualities, may be, that have turned independence into nothing more than a fallacy.




Independence doesn’t exist


When everything is said and done, is there any such a thing as independence?


Dante said independence or, put the other way, sovereignty doesn’t exist.


Said Dante: “Furthermore, human society is a totality in relation to its parts, but is itself a part of another totality. For it is the totality of particular states and peoples, as we have seen, but it is obviously a mere part of the whole universe. Therefore, as through it the lower parts of human society are well ordered, so it, too, should fit into the order of the universe as a whole.


“But its parts are well ordered only on the basis of a single principle, and hence it too must be well ordered on the basis of a single principle, namely through its governor, God, who is the absolute world government. Hence we conclude that a single world government is necessary for the well-being of the world.”


On the other hand, it could be that independence really exists, but, like a ‘tender stem of a reed’, it has been overstretched by the machinations on post-independent leaders, making it lose one of freedom’s essential ingredients, namely: The Common Good!


After all, didn’t the poet Bouterweck warn against stretching the reed so much when he recited, before Malawi was born, thus:


Bend the tender stem of a reed;

Bend it too much and it breaks.

He who attempts too much attempts nothing.

Bingu wa Mutharika: A Statesman misunderstood

He was misunderstood.

And only when the last particle of dust was cleared from his final resting place at Ndata did common sense dawn on the people.

Why?

Because, while he still walked under the noon sun, the hopes, fears, bitterness, joys, anguish and national wishes of the past eight years centred upon the heart of this one, mortal Malawian man. The First Citizen, he was called.

It was always going to be a tall order. It always is.

Why?


Because it is not just the title ‘His Excellency the State President of the Republic of Malawi’ that Bingu wa Mutharika wore; there was much more to it. With it came the willingness to embrace the lessons drawn from political turmoil, the will to stand firm against the, sometimes selfish, drumming of ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) cadres, and the wit to maintain composure under the burden of fear and suspense.


Sometimes, may be, the president could be adjudged to have been warding off an unapprehended blow, only because the persona of the President is a piece of clay in contradictory mode. The President would not be human if, every working minute, he did not battle the combined feelings of hope and fear.


It must have been particularly tough during the past three years as Malawi, short on forex, fuel and, possibly, hope, skidded towards the abyss. The president sat at the centre of it all, sometimes becoming the subject of unfair attack. It all settled in his heart; pressuring it, burdening it. Mutharika stood firm and, like the economic engineer he was, went about looking for spanners that could fix the breeding economic wounds.


He was never the one to run away, as he rightly observed in Mangochi as recently as March this year: “Bingu does not run away from responsibility…” The president even added that, other than taking the easy road to resignation, he would walk his Constitutional mile, and finish it at ‘Destination 2014’.


He had the heart to go on.


Many misunderstood him. When, for instance, he said on 5 March 2011 that Civil Society Organisations were planning July 20-like demonstrations, he was merely expressing his fears and hopes aloud: The fear that, looking at the wreckage of the pro-democracy demonstrations- in which millions of kwacha disappeared in routed and gutted property, and 19 lives went towards the way of all the earth- Malawi could find the deep of anarchy her final destination.


Mutharika, who established a make-believe pattern since his ascendancy to the position of Malawi’s Chief Executive Officer in May 2004, stroke a familiar chord that Sunday morning: He had, over the eight years, touted peace-maintenance, characterized by a nation in one frame, as the pre-requisite for national development.


Some quarters of society took issues with the way he bemoaned the involvement of development partners, casting himself in the light of a figure who appreciated their (donors’) faces, eating habits, body movements, childhood names, their children’s names, and the names of the children of their children. Just like that.


But Mutharika knew what he was doing. He had travelled widely, came to know the A-Z of foreign cultures, and knew his lines well. The other reason could be that he was, truly, Malawian. Locally, people point at others- imaginary or real- to array their own fears. It is part of Malawian culture, after all. In fact, Mutharika might have ‘mastered’ this lesson from, not only the cup of political science he drunk from in class, but Malawi’s long-held tradition.


It is a tactic best-mastered by the Chewa. Mask dancers (Gulewamkulu) , notorious for taking on the uninitiated in the Central Malawi districts of Salima, Dedza, Dowa, Ntchisi, Kasungu, and some parts of Nkhotakota and Ntcheu, have been known to corner the uninitiated by producing the ‘empty’ shout: “Ndakuona, ndakuona, Ndakuona...!” (Waste no time hiding; I have already seen you!!!)


Some people, so clueless to this old bait, rise up from their hiding places, and hand themselves over to the ‘ignorant’ mask-dancer. Likewise, Mutharika established a pattern of someone who knew things that others did not. When, for instance, he went to ‘sorry’ victims of a wild flame at Blantyre Flea Market on the sunny Monday of September 19 last year, Mutharika claimed to know the people behind the attack.


With merchandise worth millions of kwacha incinerated in the wee hours of that fateful Monday, and some vendors yet to recover in both shock and merchandise, the President added to the sombreness of the day with one threat: “Don’t think I don’t know you. I know the people behind this unsavory
attack.”


It was all ‘Ndakuona games’, played by people so knowledgeable about the psyche of the Malawian people. It is not wrong to play these games because it is not wrong to be Malawian.


For one, the Head of State and Government sees things others may not see. Every face, no matter how soft or well-curved, is blended with conspiracy; that is, when ambition is seen in the same light as ‘conspiracy’. To have ambition is to ‘conspire’ to ride over current circumstances. To frame the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy is to ‘conspire’ against under-development. And, so, are the Millennium Development Goals: a documented piece of conspiracies. That’s how presidents look at things.


With so many development blue-prints (read, conspiracies) lined up in the in-tray of the Head of State, the ordinary individual may not appreciate the amount of work pressed upon that one heart and mind. Inevitably, this development blends a combination of Presidential fear and skepticism, and may instantly produce the alternating reactions of fear, violence, or hope.


Under such circumstances, it is so easy to send signals with conflicting messages. It is all too possible to also fall into the pit of revengeful hate, or produce responses lighted with hope.


Hope? Sure. The president had hope.


“Give me three years to fix the economy. We are putting in place short and long-term plans to solve the challenges currently facing the country. Some problems cannot be solved within a day, or month,” Mutharika spoke hope in Mangochi last month. The hope was there, it was not hidden.


As the one upon whom it had been imposed by a ‘fateful’ majority on May 21, 2004 (a feat repeated, this time resoundingly, in 2009) to govern the country in trust, the President had his fare share of criticism. In this seat, criticism neither be avoided (even from quarters that offer no solutions), nor pushed away as one fights off a nightmare.


It must have been tough for the president, with all the social ostracism from CSOs, financial ostracism from the International Monetary Fund (IMF/IMF) and near banishment. All these banishments came when socio-economic challenges bogged the dismal village that is Malawi in the mud of confusion. This confusion being the man-made pit dug by development partners who deprived the country of financial resources that could help it stand firm against macro and micro-economic instability.


Mutharika- as one fit for exact fiscal policy discussions; clear in seeing the general truths of devaluation worldwide; active, unresting, and fond of love for his people, and; enquiry (as manifested by his trip to Nigeria the other day)- always wanted the best for his people. But his policy-objectives were restrained by the shrewd policy machinations of the World Bank, IMF, development partners, and an opposition bloc out to make fun out of Malawi’s challenges.


The truth is that the IMF has no economy. The World Bank has no country. It is only Bingu- who had the tenacity of purpose, courage, and an unbending will which never flinched before antagonists- who knew the material constraints of the Malawian people better, and, possibly, how to solve them.


Unfortunately for him, these characteristics were unhappily out of tune with IMF/World Bank intrigues and policy passions of the day. These institutions have the tendency to shoot down what, apparently, works, and Mutharika knew this pretty well. That’s why he stood his ground, and Malawians mistook it for selfishness.


A good case in point is that of farm input subsidies during the 1980s. The IMF said ‘No’, since it was like subsidizing consumption. When governments, including that of Malawi, accepted this, food security became a forgotten past. The African leaders must have been wary. But, more likely, the status quo might have pleased the bosses in Washington DC.

A successful politician, to the Breton woods institutions, must be a man of the IMF and World Bank, and never a man of his country.


Just that Mutharika had people to rule, people he loved, and was, therefore, ostracized for the same.


Of course, though Mutharika was one of the most ambitious presidents to stand at the helm of this great nation, he had few of the characteristics that, ordinarily, give colour and charm to personality.


But, for his intellect, he served as African Union President, where he introduced the African Food Basket masterpiece as a replication of Malawi’s successful Farm Inputs Subsidy Programme, and; Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, first as secretary general and, until the hour of his death, chairperson, among other positions.


He died, on April 5 this month, undismayed and still refusing to follow that easy, straight path to national doom through devaluation of the Kwacha. Surely, a rise in commodity prices could not be the best way of serving Malawian citizens well.


It is sad that the ambitious Mutharika died at a time when his detractors made an obscure conglomeration of all the charges that place leaders in negative light, in part designed by some development partners to furnish a common ground for those who propagated lawlessness but were unwilling to directly identify themselves with such issues.


People may mourn that death, coming so unexpectedly, has robbed Malawians of a Statesman. But Mutharika has left two things for posterity: words and works.



The words “Let the works of my hands speak for me” will, forever, reverberate across Malawi; as the works of his hands- the New Parliament Building, Five Star Hotel, the University of Science and Technology, this 2011/12 subsidised inputs (through the Farm Inputs Subsidy Programme)- continue to remind Malawians of the man who came in time, but left before his time.

Of the Elderly and HIV and AIDS

Lucius Dimiano of Kafupa Village in Chigumula township may be 68-years-old, but he’s nowhere near retirement.


Still working three jobs to support six grandchildren orphaned by HIV and Aids, Dimiano works as a guard from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. at a nearby church, thereafter goes to the garden to get maize for his family, weaves baskets to sell at the market and, then, does it all over again.


“I cannot sleep, so it’s hard,” Dimiano says. “As a night guard, I need to always be awake because sometimes there are thieves rooming in the dark.


“When I knock off in the morning I go to the garden, when I knock off in the garden I eat and then I start making baskets so I can make more money, but it’s still not enough to care for all six grandchildren.”


While Dimiano said he is “not happy to still be working as a guard because (I am) very old,” he added that, because he is no longer as strong as he used to be, there is nothing else he can do apart from guarding.


“If I still had children that could help me, I could have just stayed home, but there is no one to help me. I’m only working because of my grandchildren,” he says.


Mrs. Kandikole, 55, has also lost children to HIV and AIDS; her oldest daughter passed away in 2005 orphaning one grandchild and her second-oldest daughter passed away in 2010 orphaning three grandchildren.


“I’m the one who’s left looking out for them,” she said. “And not only those four; I have other grandchildren at my home who have only a mother but not a father.


“It’s very difficult for me to look after these children because I’m very old. I’m not working,” she continued. “Things are very expensive here in Malawi. Food is very expensive. I cannot manage to buy clothes for them. It is very difficult for me to take them to the hospital. To get good medicine, one needs to pay money at private hospitals, but I can’t manage to do all those things.”


Kandikole said she had been working at a nursery school, but had to quit when her daughters died because “(my) grandchildren were alone, so (I) had to look after these children all by (myself).”


She said her husband, 57, is still working as a telephone operator but “he makes very little money.”


“I don’t think he will be able to continue working much longer because he is now 57-years-old and his body is very weak. He is very sick,” she said, revealing that they both suffer from chronic bouts of malaria. “Before, we could manage to do all those things, but not now.”


Without the proper means or support, Kandikole said she “couldn’t manage to send (her) grandchildren to school” because “when you want to send a child to school these days, even a government school, you need to buy a uniform, pencils, exercise books and the child needs to eat porridge.


She said her grandchildren “were just staying at home” until they were accepted at the Jacaranda School for Orphans in Limbe, a free primary and secondary school in Malawi providing education and daily meals to orphans.


“If we did not have Jacaranda, these children would just be doing nothing at home,” said Kandikole. “They go to school without taking anything. If Jacaranda didn’t provide porridge I don’t know what we could do.


“I couldn’t think of this before,” she continued. “Before, I thought my children would go to school up to college and help their children by themselves. But their deaths brought everything down.”


The late Nelley Daniel M’maligeni of Che Mboma village suffered in the same way.


Deaf and blind, M’maligeni struggled to care for herself yet alone her grandson, Vincent, who was orphaned by HIV and AIDS. Before this story came to print, M’maligeni passed away at the age of 105 and Vincent lost yet another primary caretaker.


According to M’maligeni’s daughter-in-law, M’maligeni and Vincent had been sleeping in a small hut.


M’maligeni’s daughter-in-law said her family was able to give extra food to M’maligeni and Vincent once-a-week, but “sometimes it (was) hard because there (was) not enough money. Sometimes M’maligeni (could) not eat.


“Sometimes we just (bought) panado, because panado is cheap,” she said.


When asked if there can be greater relief for grandparents struggling to care for themselves and their orphaned grandchildren than over-the-counter pain medication, Helen Chasowa, Elderly People’s Association of Malawi executive director, said lack of proper policies has left Malawi’s ageing citizens at the mercy of unknown devices.


“There is not much being done for elderly people in Malawi. Apart from occasional donations of blankets, flour, and clothes, there is no policy or legislation compelling government to provide social care to these people.


“In addition, our senior citizens are accused of practicing witchcraft and forced to drink cupfuls of pepper. Overall, the elderly are neglected,” Chasowa says.


But Dominic Misomali, Blantyre District Social Welfare officer, says stranded elderly and young people at district level are assisted by his office, observing, however, that there is need for community members to hold hands and contribute resources in order to prevent the young and old spilling into the district’s Central Business District. Currently, cities such as Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu are flooded with the old and young out to look for alms.


When not in town, Malawi’s vulnerable population of the young and aged out stealing to meet their daily basic needs, according to a National Statistical Office report released seven years ago. The report is dubbed ‘Crimes of Need’, and chronicles the items people often steal, not out of habit but, need to get their daily bread.


It said over half of the criminal needs committed in rural areas are due to poverty.


The situation is billed to change for the better, however, following non-state actors’ interest in meeting needs of the elderly. Reen Kachere, former Minister responsible for the Elderly and People with Disabilities (who is now minister responsible for People with Disabilities following the creation of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare headed by Anita Kalinde) runs the Neno Shelter for the Aged.


The shelter, run by the Association for Progressive Women (APW) she founded before joining politics, provides shelter and nutrition supplements to elderly people who have no other means of survival.


“The shelter has provided recourse to people who, otherwise, are left to resign to fate. Since establishment of the shelter, we have seen mortality among the elderly members decline. In fact, we just lost one of the people who was driving the grader that constructed Mwanza road some two years ago, meaning that the elderly are history,” Noel Msiska, project officer for the shelter, says.


Government also seems to have taken a step forward. For example, Finance Minister Ken Lipenga says that government has put in place safety net programmes that target both the elderly and other vulnerable people in the 2012/13 National Budget.


“These programmes are aimed at assisting the poorest in our communities to cope with life. During the 2012/13 fiscal year, however, the programmes will be scaled up to capture those that may have fallen below the poverty line due to devaluation.


“A total of K27.5 billion has been provided for four programmes mainly the Intensive Public Works Programme, the School Feeding Programme targeted towards 980,000 pupils in primary schools, the Schools Bursaries Programme targeting 16,480 needy students, and the Social Cash Transfer Programme which will reach over 30,000 households across the country,” says Lipenga.


The World Bank has been contributing towards safety net programmes through the Malawi Social Action Fund and the Irrigation, Rural Livelihoods and Agriculture Development Programmes (IRLAD). Aimed at creating more community assets and building community resilience to help cushion the rural poor, the programme will this year be scaled up from the original 11 districts to all the 28 Districts to benefit about 250,000 smallholder households.


Kalinde, who engaged on a familiarization tour of institutions under her ministry, said early June she would work day and night to lessen the plight of vulnerable children and adults. She says government will also look into the prospect of making safety nets all-encompassing in order to reach out to many people.


But, until this year’s National Budget is passed come June 31, Malawians struggling to care for their orphaned grandchildren will continue to look toward an uncertain future for a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of their families, with no choice but to hope that their grandchildren will one day care for them in return.


“The only ones who can decide if I stop working are my grandchildren,” Dimiano said. “Maybe they will see that we are very old and cannot work anymore and they will help us. But maybe they will finish school and go away.


“At the moment, I do not know.”

Renew ‘N’ Able increases rural access to renewable energy technologies

Renew ‘N’ Able Malawi (Renama), a Non-Governmental Organisation formed by former volunteer Martina Kunert, has embarked on a data compilation exercise that will see it profile service providers in the natural resource management and renewable energy technologies sector.


Renama director Kunert says the initiative has been hatched with the goal of solving poor coordination problems that have marred implementation of programmes in the sector, and led to duplication of efforts, lack of a best practices’ sharing culture, and difficulties in identifying organisations involved in natural resources’ work.


“We have realized that, at the moment, project implementers are not learning from each other. The exercise, which is being facilitated by the Movement for Bio-Energy Advocacy Utilisation Learning Action (Mbaula) Network, will, therefore, help improve coordination. Our work is about changing structures by equipping poor households with an environment conducive to transforming poverty into a life beyond mere existence,” Kunert says.


She says information gathered from service organisations will be of benefit to both local and international organisations, and would go a long way in promoting initiatives such as alternative house holds energy projects.


Currently, Renama is running a ‘Rural Energy Kiosk Pilot Project’ being implemented at Bvumbwe in Thyolo and Dzenje in Phalombe courtesy of a grant received under the Scottish Government Malawi Development Fund 2012/13. The project, which is targeting 400 households, will see solar-powered energy kiosks being installed at Bvumbwe Court and Dzenje Primary School.


This intention is to develop the kiosks into fully community-owned and managed rental and charging stations for battery packs, and will have in-built charge controllers and compatible basic energy devices such as mobile phone charging kits, LED lamps, tube lights, small low-power TV screens for private households.


In addition, the project also has a limited number of satellite decoders, laptop charging kits and complete solar sets available to higher income households, centres, community institutions, and small businesses.


Says Kunert: “A component of the project is the Local Electricity Inventor Competition in which school classes, teams and individuals from the surrounding communities will be encouraged to think about practicable solutions to electrify household devices with locally-developed generation methods.


“University members and educated public are also invited to suggest concepts for alternative, more locally-developed and maintainable generation technologies to charge energy kiosks instead of using solar PV, which, in the end, always depends on an agent to help source or import appropriate equipments, combined with regular high-cost replacements and long-term high-technology maintenance needs.”


Kunert says the project seeks to compliment government’s efforts to increase people’s access to cheap, alternative energy products. As part of government’s efforts to turn this goal into reality, President Joyce Banda has just appended her signature to the Global Alliance for Clean Cook Stoves.


The Alliance seeks to facilitate the distribution of two million cook stoves to Malawians who have no access to hydro-electric power by the year 2020.


“The Thyolo and Mulanje projects are proving to be successful because we have seen community members, people who could previously not afford hydro-electric power, manage their own energy needs. What we are doing is to let out battery packs, lamps, small television sets, and other things, to community members,” Kunert says.


On their part, the community members have formed committees comprising of 15 members. These committees look after kiosks that benefit 200 people, and are run by two kiosk managers who derive their pay from rental income.


“People need sustainable basic energy at their disposal to study, communicate, cook safely, innovate, and be safe. They need access to information tailored to their understanding, education and language to foster innovation and help (pull) themselves out of poverty, and this includes access to practical information on simple, low-cost technology and material sourcing. Poor households need access to adequate financing options to acquire adequate start-up equipment to diversify income sources and create entrepreneurship,” Kunert says.


Kunert says all this work has come about after realising that that conventional wood fuels and paraffin used for heating and lighting negatively affect many aspects of life.


All these innovations are premised on the fact that, when clean energy takes the place of accidents and fumes, it is life that wins.

Phalombe community members cry foul over food distribution

Some community members in Phalombe, one of the nine districts hit by hunger in the country, have cried foul over the manner beneficiaries were registered, claiming that some genuine beneficiaries have been left out.


But the Department of Disaster Management Affairs has thrown the ball back at the communities, saying it is community members themselves who identify and come up with a list of beneficiaries.


One of the affected people, 31-year-old Grace Matemba from Mwango Village , Group Village Headman Njovu, said she has been left out on the list of beneficiaries despite having no food in her family.


“They know I have no food items but they still sidelined me. I don’t know how to feed my six children,” Matemba said.


She said, out of 985 people in our village, only 50 people have received relief items.


Another community member, Christopher Gowelo of Ng’anjo Village, in the area of Traditional Authority Jenala, said while people who were registering beneficiaries knew that his maize and sorghum crop had failed, the still overlooked him.


“I just pray that we should be considered. I look after six biological children and two orphaned children and do not know where our next meal will come from,” he said.


Responding to the concerns in an interview, Principal Secretary and Commissioner, Disaster Management Affairs Department, Jeffrey Kanyinji, said the department works with Village Development Committees and local leaders who identify beneficiaries and send the list to the department.


“The community members know those who are in need. Among other things, they look at the assets of an individual and evaluate whether such assets are enough to see them through lean periods,” Kanyinji said.


Kanyinji also said, in order to ensure that people who deserve relief items are not left out, the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) carries out assessments and releases two reports a year.


“For example, during the first MVAC report, Chiradzulu was not there. Now Chiradzulu is there. In the second report (released October)l, we have seen numbers of vulnerable people from Blantyre, Mulanje, Thyolo increase,” Kanyinji said.


Kanyinji that long-term efforts to cushion vulnerable communities from food insecurity were being put in place, citing resilience plans that include irrigation farming. He said the department is also encouraging people to grow drought-resistant crops such as sorghum.


He said some people have already started receiving maize seeds and fertilizer.


The department and development partners have launched an operation targeting nearly 700,000 beneficiaries in nine districts of Machinga, Chikhwawa, Nsanje, Balaka, Blantyre, Neno, Ntcheu, Phalombe, and Zomba.


The July Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) report estimated that 1.6 million people- 1- percent of the rural population- will be food insecure during the peak of the hunger period, between January and March 2013.


However, preliminary results from the second 2012 MVAC update assessment, which took place between October 1 and 4 October this year, indicate an increased number of food insecure people in need of assistance. The government and WFP are waiting for the official results of the assessment to review their relief operation.


In response to the food insecurity situation in the country, the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) formally requested WFP to start planning and making arrangements to support the Government of Malawi through DoDMA, in implementing a humanitarian programme to address MVAC needs.


In response to this request, WFP and its partners, under the overall leadership of the government, launched a relief in August in three district that were already vulnerable due to an early onset of the lean season. Assistance is being scaled up in a phased manner and will reach 1.6 million people in all 15b affected districts during the hunger period (January to March 2013). The operation is currently reaching nearly 700,000 beneficiaries in nine districts (Machinga, Chikhwawa, Nsanje, Balaka, Blantyre, Neno, Ntcheu, Phalombe, and Zomba).


A World Food Programme statement released on November 6 indicate that, in August, 196,902 people were reached out with 2303 MT of maize, pulses, and super cereal, representing 100 percent of the target as planned.


September needs were covered for 499,284 people, with 5,713 MT of maize, pulses, super cereal , representing 100 percent of the target, while distributions in October were equally successful; however, these figures will be released once the reports are finalised.


“WFP is appealing to donors to bridge the remaining resource gap that currently stands at US$26 million to continue providing food assistance to the affected population in Malawi,” reads the statement in part.


Deputy WFP Country Director, Baton Osmani, said in an interview the agency has joined hands with partners to ensure that affected people are reached out. He said the programme was going on smoothly, and hoped that more people would be reached.

WFP on course with food distribution programme

The World Food Programme (WFP) and the British Department for International Development have responded positively to the request made by the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) on the need to launch a humanitarian programme to address Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee findings, a development that has them scaling up food distribution efforts.

According to a WFP statement issued this month, the efforts, which were launched in three districts in August, are being scaled up in a phased manner in a drive to reach up to 1.6 million people in 15 affected districts between January and March 2013. It says the operation has reached close to 700,000 beneficiaries in Machinga, Chikhwawa, Nsanje, Balaka, Blantyre, Neno, Ntcheu, Phalombe, and Zomba.

Deputy WFP Country Director, Baton Osmani, said recently when the UN agency was distributing relief items to beneficiaries at Mileme Primary School in Phalombe district that WFP has partnered with other organisations to ensure that food items reach out to vulnerable people.

“We are working with partners to distribute food and, at the moment, we are working in about nine districts,” Osmani says.

Head of DFID in Malawi, Sarah Sanyahumbi, one of the officials who witnessed the food distribution efforts in Phalombe, reaffirmed DFID’s commitment towards relief efforts. She said DFID has been working with the Malawi government, US agencies, and WFP to make sure that people are food secure.

“We have provided 10 million (about K5 billion) pounds for this whole programme, meant for the season from September to March, and we are targeting 1.6 million people,” Sanyahumbi said.

These efforts have been buoyed by the government’ own efforts, which include the release of 25,000 metric tonnes of maize from the Strategic Grain Reserves (SGR) for the start of the response.

An official from Adventist Relief Agency (Adra), one of WFP’s partners in Phalombe, said relief workers have intensified their efforts. Adra’s Emergency and Relief Manager, Hastings Lacha, said efforts were being put in place to reach all affected people.

Lacha said, among other areas, the relief efforts are targeting 3018 households in T/A Jenala, 7854 in T/A Chiwalo, 1888 in T/A Nkhulambe, totaling 12,760 households.

DoDMA Principal Secretary and Commissioner, Jeffrey Kanyinji, said the department has been working with Development Committees and local leaders to identify beneficiaries.

Kanyinji said, apart from coordinating relief efforts, the government was putting in lace long-term programmers in a bid to cushion vulnerable communities from food insecurity. He said the resilience plans include the promotion of irrigation farming.

“We are also encouraging people to grow drought-resistant crops such as sorghum,” Kanyinji said.

However, WFP is appealing to donors to bridge the remaining resource gap that currently stands at US$26 million (about K8 billion) to continue providing food assistance to the affected population in Malawi.

The July Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) report estimates that 1.6 million people- 1 percent of the rural population- will be food insecure between January and March 2013.

However, preliminary results from the second 2012 MVAC update assessment, which took place between 1 October and 4 October 2012, indicate an increased number of food insecure people in need of assistance.

Natural Catastrophe: Plotting against Malawi’s sleeping earthquakes

Dancing buildings. Defaced landmarks and road infrastructure. General panic. Lost lives.


It did not take Karonga District residents and public officials long to find the suspect- an earthquake.


The signs were there, long before the devastating earthquake of December 19, 2009 showed to the world how serious the problem is for Karonga, a district the Geological Surveys Department indicates lies above an area prone to faulty rock movements arising from deep within the earth’s crust.


The price people and infrastructure pay for playing tenant to the Great East Africa Rift Valley System areas.


The first quake, almost prophetic, struck early during the month of December, forcing people to abandon their houses for the unpredictable open ground during the night, and back into their houses wearing the safety of day light.


Then, on December 19, 2009, it happened. At four-years old, Agnes Sambo was in the morning of her life, and yet she died. Sambo was hit by falling walls of a house she, and other family members, were sleeping in, according to Karonga District Police Public Relations Officer, Enock Livason.


Sixty-year old Tereza Kilembe, 15-times Sambo’s age, had a long way to go before the sunset of her life. She, along with one more Karonga resident, became part of Sunday, December 20, 2009’s statistics: Quake kills Three.


United only by the fact they both hailed from the area of Paramount Chief Kyungu, they were later joined by one more productive citizen of the district, all because of a natural phenomenon originating from a distance of remote impossibility from Karonga’s bustling district life.


John Saiwa-Kilembe, one of the people hard hit by the earthquake disaster, lost a house to the unstable earth that Saturday night. He, like most of the people affected, wondered aloud why the quake chose to wear the mask of darkness and strike at night, when most people were peacefully asleep.


“That brought general confusion. Nobody understood it any more than anybody else. What pains me is that I spent over K600, 000 to construct my house. After the earthquake, its value went down to practically nothing- reduced to rubble,” said Saiwa-Kilembe.


Most of the net worth of Karonga people, even during these days of changing lifestyles and Western culture infiltrations, lies in their firm belief to uphold traditional values. Often, these values do not come in cash terms; they are measured in units of integrity and respect. However, the one factor affected people seem to have come to peaceful terms with is that, during disasters and panicking moments, even values go down regardless of worth. Even the most respected community members may find themselves crammed with commoners in donated tents.


Michael Chatsika, who now has to grapple with the fact that his Toyota Carina family car is damaged beyond repair as garage walls fell over it, acknowledges this fact better than many. He spent three days sleeping in tents.


“Just in November 2009, I could not imagine myself being in this situation. Once disaster befell us, there was no choosing where to sleep or what to eat. I would, however, love to thank all well-wishers for coming to our rescue. I have now come to understand the gift of giving better than before,” said Chatsika, who originally comes from the Central Region district of Dowa but settled in Karonga. He says he will never leave Karonga, his new, lovable district. Nothing, not even earthquakes.


Now that the quakes are come and, God forbid, may continue to disrupt normal life during the rainy season- and relief items continue to trickle down for the quake victims: should public authorities and us just sit on our laurels and wait for the next disaster?


“No, that would be sheer recklessness. It is high time we started planning against the earthquakes big time. Malawians must now join hands and see how we may minimize property and life loss in future,” says Undule Mwakasungura, publicity secretary for Karonga Earthquake Victims Trust.


Sheer recklessness it would be, agrees Dr. Ignacio Ngoma- president of the Malawi Institution of Engineers (MIE). Why does he rush to comment, anyway; what do engineers have to do with earthquakes?


“Earthquake mitigation mechanisms wear a multidisciplinary face. Many disciplines are involved including engineers, seismologists, architects, public administrators, risk analyzers and managers, economists, building conservation technologists, as well as material testing and inspection experts,” argues Ngoma.


Ngoma says no future planning efforts could really work without incorporating engineers because this crop of people considers earthquakes a type of load that exerts forces on infrastructure they build and operate. They have also come to know, through experience, that the force created by quakes may be either static or dynamic, depending on the ground motion.


“By far, the most serious earthquake damage is structural. What engineers do is design and construct buildings that will withstand various degrees of earthquake exposure. In addition, we also have building codes that cover such areas as the largest earthquake magnitude ever recorded in any particular area and any such probability,” says Ngoma.


He is an angry man, though, at the lack of appreciation for engineers’ work and usefulness in reducing quake and winds damage, at least in Malawi. Just look at the general lack of public works engineers in most Town and District Assemblies, he says, not to mention government departments, and takes a shot at long-standing public engineers’ vacancies in most institutions.


It is like courting death, in real terms, he warns.


When disaster strikes, there is one face that shines above all faces; a voice above the noise. This is Lilian Ng’oma, Commissioner for Disaster Management Affairs.


Ng’oma does not cherish it when the Department of Disaster Management Affairs comes to drawn all faces and voices in the aftermath of disasters; she dies for a time when Malawi will establish comprehensive disaster alert systems, especially on earthquakes, so the Department may concentrate on the task of warning people in advance before disasters of the Karonga magnitude.


“It is better to warn people in advance than rush with relief items. That is why we would love the Geological Surveys Department, for instance, to map out earthquake-prone areas in, say, Karonga so we may have an effective earthquakes’ early warning system. That will make our work easy as we will be able to forewarn people, and possibly evacuate them, before disaster strikes,” says Ng’oma, who cited the Lower Shire as one of the areas this system really works.


Not that she wouldn’t like to help- soliciting maize floor here, Soya for children, salt, beans, tents, cooking oil, blankets, kitchen utensils, plastic sheets, poles for temporally houses and jerry cans there.


But the running around, it cannot last forever. When will it end?


“When we begin to plan properly. This includes routine checks on structures like bridges and buildings. We should also promote the construction of mad huts, which has shown strong resilience against earthquake damage,” says engineer Hutchson Mthinda. He has never seen the face of an earthquake, but has planned against more than a thousand in his lifetime.


As it is, Karonga will continue to experience earthquake occurrences because, geologists say, it lies at a point where two arms of the Rift Valley meet to form a Y-junction of two other rifts- one from the Red Sea and the other from Zambia.


This adds to Malawi’s continued susceptibility to earthquakes. The last great quake to have caused great damage came in 1989, and heavily affected Salima district. The Chitala Earthquakes, seismologists and geologists call them over a drink.


Earthquakes are measured on a scale christened Richter, after the name of the person who came up with the innovation, but human beings do not normally feel earthquakes with a magnitude of less than 2.0. There is no upper limit on the scale though earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 8.0 are described as ‘great’ and, on average, only one of these will occur in the world each year.


Most earthquakes occurring in Malawi are moderate, of less than 6.0 in magnitude on the Richter scale, though those above 6.0 and 7.0 occasionally occur.


A geologists’ map for Malawi is replete with dots of earthquake black spots all over, but the dots are much darker for Karonga and brother-in-disaster Salima.


And MIE president, Ngoma, offers little hope when he says: “It is important to note that all engineering solutions are limited by economic and political considerations.”


The only consideration politicians- including the incumbent President Bingu wa Mutharika, former Heads of State Bakili Muluzi and Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda- ever made was declare affected areas ‘Disaster Zones’ while the economists merely went to such zones and counted the losses and costs. Nothing like planning for the future.


Mutharika has declared Karonga district a disaster area already, but the question remains: what next?


Detecting earthquakes is, for now, a business of remote impossibility because they are creatures of short-notice mannerisms. They can only be detected within seconds- too late for any early warning system to be effective. Neither can they be blocked by placing a huge stone in their way.

Does University Edecucation Selection Criterion Matter? The Case of 2010

Benedicto Kondowe, National Coordinator for Civil Society Coalition for Quality Basic Education (CSCQBE), is a man of high estimations; he sets his eyes on the future and never looks back, overtly sure that human beings will always learn from history’s toughest lessons.



Like so many who hope that tomorrow may be better than today, his optimism for the future of education in Malawi is pregnant almost to a fault. At least, that is the impression one gets from Kondowe since announcement of the 2009 Primary School Leaving Certificate Examinations (PSLCE) results, and list of candidates selected to various national secondary schools.



Dots of pessimism and discouragement now mark facial expressions once decorated with hope and optimism. Moreover, Kondowe cannot help but look back at life’s little lessons- something that brings him to the realization that, after all, childhood was a lesson, too.


The lesson he gets: When you are a small child, you know something is not right, and you do not like it. But you do not question it, and you never let that get you down; you, sought of, just continue to move on with life, to live.


This is the situation Malawian Civil Society Organisations (CSO) found themselves in when the country embraced multiparty democracy in 1994. They could see things go wrong with the new political leaders and merely move on with their lives.


“Now we have matured with age and are ready to question those in authority whenever we see that something has gone amiss. We have even gone a step further and are increasingly engaging the government in dialogue on various issues of national interest,” says Kondowe.


A good case in point is that of the 2009 PSLCE secondary school selection list. Kondowe, the Livingstonia Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian and others feel shortchanged on the results, and are questioning the Ministry of Education.


The bone of contention, over an issue government officials say is far way straight forward, is the difference in regional percentage points. CSCQEBE and Livingstonia Synod are questioning the rationale behind drastic reductions in selected students from the Northern region, and suspect an invisible hand and system to be at play.


“Why, for example, is it that the number of students selected to national secondary schools for Northern region candidates has dwindled from 19 per cent in 2009 to 13 per cent (representing a decrease of 6 percentage points) in 2010? At the same time, the number of students from the Southern and Central region has increased from 36 per cent in 2009 to 42 percent in 2010, and 42 per cent in 2009 to 44 percent in 2010, respectively. We suspect foul play,” said Kondowe.


What sort of foul play?


“We believe that the quota system has been used indiscreetly,” he adds, his anger beginning to appear.


The issue of quota system has a deep surface. It existed during the one party regime and was, subsequently, abandoned. Then, in 2007, the University Council reignited debate over the issue following concerns presented in Parliament by one opposition Member of Parliament over the shortfalls of University Entrance Examinations (UEE).


The MP noted that UEE was creating selection disparity between urban and rural students but the Council identified regional disparity and not urban versus rural was what the Council identified as a core issue.


Facts established by the council indicated that about 3000 students qualify for entrance examinations every year, competing for about 900 spaces only. It then requested the Centre for Education Research and Training (CERT) to conduct a comprehensive study to confirm or disqualify this impression.


The University Council, however, noted the social-political implications of the trend to the future of Malawi’s education, and recommended to the University Senate in 2007 to consider re-introducing the quarter system, but the Senate pleaded for more time and consultations.


Now CSCQBE believes the Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb), which is not related to the University Council or Senate, has borrowed a leaf from the University of Malawi and applied a quota system of selection.


“Otherwise, Maneb should come out in the open and explain its selection criteria. People may lose trust in it. It is also good for the government to be transparent because it will help the regions that have not done better to get back to successful, old ways,” said Kondowe.


However, Education Minister George Chaponda feels that CSOs suspecting foul play are seeing opium smoke where plantations never exist. The 2010 secondary selection process was normal, he says, and nothing sinister ever happened.


Chaponda assures Malawians that government would not behind their backs and implement a system that is far from matured, asking people to get regional politics out of the selection equation.


The issue of quota system is a contentious issue even within the file and ranks of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), following the firing of former Director of Political Affairs Harry Mkandawire.


This was after Mkandawire’s public criticism of government’s intention to employ the quota system. The party liked no bit of his criticism of President Bingu wa Mutharika, who has vowed to make development, including access to higher education, equitable to all Malawians.


Mutharika has often advocated for equality in sharing the national development cake, and says just such a development could help spur a new era of all-round development.


DPP has, thus, not taken lightly to CSCQBE and Livingstonia Synod accusations of under-hand tactics. Dr. Hetherwick Ntaba, DPP Publicity Secretary, feels that the sentiments are innuendos aimed at the ruling party- now driving the current administration.


“The Livingstonia Synod and others should know that the schools in question are national schools and not regional schools. These people are advocating regional lines, yet the number of Northern region students in the country’s education facilities is more than the 13% Livingstonia Synod is claiming. People must know that these students are scattered all over Malawi.”


Ntaba adds that, in fact, “Section 20, subsection 2 of the Republican Constitution requires that government acts to address any inequalities in the country. If I may ask, why are other regions not complaining; they are a silent majority.”


CSCQBE has since threatened to take stern action, among others by carrying out a more comprehensive study on the “evils” of the year’s secondary school selection criteria.


“Equitable distribution should not be retrospective,” says Kondowe.


It remains to be seen whether the coalition will take any real action. However, a 2009 study conducted in four SADC countries by Development Media Africa (Dema) revealed that CSOs rarely succeed in their advocacy roles.


The Dema study indicated, for instance, that only 3 per cent of advocacy efforts for Malawian CSOs worked for the past five years, with Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia reporting a 13 per cent effectiveness rate.


What is more? The study, which had 1780 respondents in all the four countries, revealed that CSOs rarely follow what they preach, often doing the very same things they scorn governments for.


A recent press conference on equal distribution of resources in the education sector, organized by the equality-conscious CSCQBE in Blantyre, could be a good case in point. While coalition officials vilified government for sidelining the Northern region in this year’s secondary school selection in the presence of 28 journalists, they handpicked only eight members of the pen for sitting allowances.


Equitable distribution the CSCQBE-way!

Malawian Nurses: Saving Lives with Compassion

The Malawian health facility remains, largely, a net- catching up committed workers in a trap of adverse ‘circumstances’. These workers include nurses, midwives, medical assistants, clinical technicians, doctors, among others.


But what are the circumstances?


“Human resource constraints, failure to retain staff and disparities between number of workers in rural and urban areas,” says Martha Kwataine, national coordinator for the Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN).


These circumstances have particularly pinned one medical worker, the nurse, down. In rural health facilities, the nurse is the ‘doctor’, and often triples as nurse, midwife and medical assistant.


Not that no one cares, though; just that policymakers still drop, from time to time, in a vacuum of policy objectives that take us nowhere, enthuses Kwataine.


Indicators are that, unless Malawi presents better ‘Commitment Deeds’ towards its 13,066,320 population, it will be tough to fill this vacuum. On one hand, MHEN estimates that Malawi only has half the required number of nurses.


Against the national requirement of 10,000 nurses, for example, Malawi has 5000. One mind does the work of two.


It has been like this since independence that, in 2007, the Ministry of Health had 54 out of every 100 posts for nurses unfilled, a health system the Malawi Health Report described as “…close to collapse.


The World Health Organisation (WHO), on the other hand, indicates that Malawi is nursing a medical personnel crisis because, instead of 100 nurses serving 100,000 patients, 59 Malawian nurses serve 100,000 patients.


“This is why the nurse’s role remains unappreciated in our society,” says Dorothy Ng’oma, National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives (Nonm) executive director.


She says moral courage of nurses alone is insufficient to register national success unless it is executed as part of that greater entity called ‘collective action’.


Health Minister, Dr. Jean Kalirani, claims just that. She says Malawi has recently been taking the right direction, as seen by increased enrollment numbers. Over the past five six years, the intake to Kamuzu College of Nursing and Christian Health Association of Malawi training colleges has doubled.


This comes against the background of the national scare of 2009, when The Sector Wide Approach programme for medical students ended, and government officials were forced to withdraw student scholarships. Consequently, the majority of nursing students withdrew due to failure to raise K350, 000 for one year’s learning.


It was a temporary predicament, though, because, during the 2010/2011 Fiscal Year, government rescinded its decision and channeled K398 million towards tuition scholarships meant to benefit 1,200 medical students.


“This administration is very much committed to improve the situation, as seen by high level involvement in Safe Motherhood issues. The First Lady’s initiative is a sign of commitment on government’s part,” says Dr. Kalirani.


But Ng’oma maintains that nurses continue to face enormous challenges. She adds, however, that, against all these odds, Malawian nurses still play the lamb, and resist the human urge to make inconsistent demands for all their unsatisfied grievances.


“The nurse is the bastion of love and compassion,” says Ng’oma. “The issue of compromise also comes into play.”



Indeed, for the Malawian nurse, being there is a compromise because job opportunities abound Western countries, rife with better salaries and conditions. Ng’oma says local nurses do a ‘sacrificial and commendable’ job


Go to Mulanje Mission Hospital to get the real meaning of ‘commendable’. There, Blantyre C.C.A.P. Synod’s Health and Development Commission (BSHDC) is running a programme on Safe Motherhood.


Before October 2010, Mulanje District Health Office’s reports were awash with statistics of deaths that could be avoided, adding on to Malawi’s tally of 675 deaths per 100,000 live births. But a 30 September 2011 report points to positive changes.


By working with 250 safe motherhood committee members in 25 villages, the initiative has strengthened referral systems for SRH services by increasing health-seeking behaviour among pregnant women.


Says Anthony Kanyoma, BSHDC Programmes Manager: “Among other outcomes, we have reduced community members’ dependence on Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs). We have also engaged nurses to follow up on hospital attendance while midwives follow up on home deliveries,” says Kanyoma.


One of the success points is that TBAs have been incorporated, and serve as ‘referral agents’ who refer women to health facilities for proper care. To ensure compliance, Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) are monitoring the TBAs.


So far, 72 traditional leaders in T/A Mabuka, Chikumbu and Mkanda have joined the campaign. In T/A Chikumbu’s area, for instance, women choose between K500 and a goat in fines for home deliveries.


“However, because Mulanje Mission Hospital serves both Malawian and Mozambican women, TBAs continue to carry out deliveries on Mozambican women. They argue that Malawian laws cannot apply to Mozambicans,” says Kanyoma.


But not all community members are happy. One of the dissatisfied is Maxwell Nazombe of Salamba village.


“We are disappointed that HSAs are not trained in midwifery. I have seen pregnant women die from labour complications in HSAs’ presence. I fear for their (HSAs) lives because people may beat them up one day,” says Nazombe.


The situation is, however, different in Mangochi district, where a College of Medicine’s Centre for Reproductive Health (CRH) initiative has unveiled new type of ‘nurses’- community members.


Andrew Ngwira, CRH Research Officer and project assistant on youth affairs, says cases of early marriages leading into teen-age pregnancies used to be common, chocking services at Lungwena Health Centre and St. Martin’s Hospital.


“This has changed now following our intervention to improve the maternal mortality situation in Malindi, Lungwena and Makanjira by promoting contraceptives’ use,” says Ngwira.


The Community-Based Distribution Agents’ approach, which engages community volunteers in promoting best SRH practices, has reduced burdens associated with nurse-to-patients ratio.


“We have trained nurses in customer care, so that they may cordially handle clients. Early marriage incidences have been reduced. Fish-for-sex practices have been minimized and, so, have cases of fistula- issues that contributed to high maternal mortality rates,” says Ngwira.


However, as the situation improves in Mulanje and Mangochi, an SRH disaster rooms in other parts of Malawi, according SRH expert, Timothy Bonyonga.


“Good SRH practices will not lead into improved conditions because young people continue to get pregnant before the right age. This is creating a wave of mentally disturbed children, children who show signs of poor physical development as well. These children may be so brilliant in class, but lack that human touch in their way of doing things,” says Bonyonga.


Bonyonga warns that this situation could turn Malawi into a nation of “stubborn, selfish, irrational individuals”.


“Nobody wants this to happen to Malawi,” says Bonyonga.

Farming God's Way

A five-lettered word- hunger- has been the subject of eternal questions for Village Headwoman Binali of Traditional Authority Malemia in Zomba.


At every mention of the word hunger, she says, two questions always popped up in her mind.


“Is hunger a myth? Is it part of history and, therefore, history?” queries Binali, who is here, at Naming’azi Farm Training Centre. She is one of the people participating in the Agriculture Field Day organised by Blantyre C.C.A.P Synod Health and Development Commission (BSHDC) this August day.


Binali doesn’t ask these questions from a vacuum. She says, traditionally, agricultural activities have tended to take the form of an economy of unpredictability, as manifested in so many contrasting outcomes when it comes to harvesting.


She says, for instance, that farming in Malawi has come to mean an array of losses in one year followed by gains in the next; possession of surplus crops and livestock in one year, and dispossession of the same due to weather patterns in another, and; more harvests in one year followed by poor productivity in yet another year.


It is like myth (that hunger is part of life) and history clashing as, since time immemorial, there have been years of plenty and years of scanty, agriculture-wise.


“The question,” Binali says, “is: Should we say that, because we have always had years of plenty harvest and years of scanty harvest, then, it is established and settled that there is nothing people can do to avert hunger? I don’t think so. I think it is a myth to believe that we will always have hunger around, even though hunger is recorded even in our oral history.”


Not that Binali has always reasoned like this. Her new thinking is a product of BSHDC’s project dubbed ‘Sakata Community Development Programme’, an initiative aimed at building farmers resilience to climate change.


Binali says she developed interest in the programme after being trained along with nine other chiefs.


“We were trained by Mzungu (white man) and given 10 kg of groundnuts, goats, aKalulu, guinea fouls, and goats. But thieves stole some of the things,” she says.


But, while the thieves went away with livestock and farm produce, the knowledge has remained with Binali and her subjects. After all, Chrispo Ndiwo Banda, agriculture officer for Sakata Community Development Programme, will testify that some of the innovations being promoted under the programme- which include ulimi wa mtayakhasu (conservation agriculture)- require participating farmers to remain in good books with their neighbours.


Standing on part of the 150 acres of land that belongs to the Synod at Naming’azi Farm Training Centre, Banda tells visitors that. “Here, where you are standing, is our Ulimi wa Mtayakhasu demonstration plot. As you can see, there are no ridges in the garden. The distance between one planting station to another is 60 centimetres (cm), while the distance between what was supposed to be a ridge to another is 75cm. Farmers are advised to plant between two and three seeds, according to conditions.


“However, it must be said that, for it to be successful, there is need for farmers to be in good books with their neighbours. Otherwise, some people may try to frustrate the farmer. For example, in December last year, one farmer’s produce was destroyed after someone set fire on the field.”


“The other challenge remains termites’ attacks,” Banda says, adding, however, that conservation agriculture, which he calls “farming God’s way” is the best way to go for farmers.


Some of those listening to his ‘lecture’ are officials from Churches Action in Relief and Development, Act Alliance, the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, Evangelical Development Service (Germany), Christian Aid, Christian Health Association of Malawi, Malawi Council of Churches, among others.


Apart from Naming’azi Farm Training Centre, the programme’s wings have also spread to Kanyenda Village, Sub-T/A Mkagula, located less than 10 Km from the training centre.


In this village, Gloria Ng’omba, Asiatu Jackson, Christina Affiah, Monesta Chitulo and Berita Jamu have become the face of ‘Sakata Community Development Programme’ after being chosen by the Village Implementation Committee to become the first recipients of a dairy cow.


The all-women grouping underwent training on January 31 this year, which was followed by receipt of the cow on February 15.


“Taona (name of their two-and-a-half-years cow) is producing high quality milk. This breed produces 20 litres of milk a day- 10 in the morning and 10 in the afternoon. Through the daily milk bank we have close by, we hope for the best,” Jackson says.


The cow, says Ndiwo, is part of a revolving programme and, so far, things look promising for the five women. Taona delivered a bouncing calf weighing 70 Kg on September 1. But this does not come cheap: the women have to do is provide medication to prevent infections, and a good monger.


There is also a fish and poultry farming component attached to the programme. The 15-weeks-old 200 layer chickens and Makumba and Chiringuni fish bear testimony to the diversification taking place at this place.


BSHDC Board Chairperson, Stain Singo, is impressed with the way farmers are adapting to climate change by diversifying.


“In the past, farmers would depend on one crop only, and this rendered them vulnerable to climate-change shocks. By engaging in goats, chickens rearing, bee keeping, crop cultivation, farmers will have options in case one of these,” Singo says.


Singo says the programme in Zomba shows just how instrumental church organs can be in national development.


His sentiments are shared by BSHDC Director, Lonnie Ncozana, who says the development arm has improved people’s lives in terms of food security, economic development, and healthcare delivery.


“Our work started with primary care. We carried a needs assessment survey in 20 villages. The good thing is that beneficiaries are identified by community members themselves,” Ncozana says.


Ncozana says she is happy that Blantyre Synod has managed to create a food security triangle in the former capital city. This triangle has been created because, after undergoing training at Naming’azi, farmers go back to their communities to practice what they have learned. In the end, some of the farmers go to Domasi Fortification Centre where nutrients are added to their produce, thereby creating a triangle-like shape.


It is this triangle that has enabled Talandira Village Savings and Loan Association chairperson, Esme Lifa, to purchase a “brand new bicycle at K20, 000 last year”, one of the group’s 19 women members to have developed a thick skin against resource-poverty.


“But we don’t allow men in our group; they may end up reaping us off and running away,” Esme says.


So, it is not only against climate change that women are scheming against; they are against men’s cheating, too.

Searching for Democracy's Meaning in The Chikhwawa Valley

June 14, 1993: Heavy political clouds enveloped the horizon, as voters kicked through the rotting one-party dictatorship door to beckoning multiparty democracy huts. Malawians felt that the rains would be too heavy for a single roof, and sought shelter in a multiplicity of political huts.


The political rains fell heavily in May 1994, when the electorate voted for political change. In the euphoria that followed, the bitter past was quickly forgotten- so much so that the violence (burning of losing Malawi Congress Party Land Rovers and property in Salima and other districts), corruption, questionable public tendering processes, political appeasement, monopoly of State-run media, diversion of development projects from opposition strongholds to ruling party zealots’ abodes, among other creeping tendencies, tasted sweet.


Sixteen years down the line, however, the huts seem to have quickly evolved into some form of desolate wildernesses, forcing voters in such districts as Chikhwawa onto the unkempt road-of-common sense in search of simple answers.


“We were made to understand that democracy means the power to participate in political and development activities. So far, this has not been the case: the ordinary man and woman can still not get his or her voice heard,” said Andrew Mantchichi from Chikhwawa Central constituency.


When citizens lose the prospect of a response from those in authority- councilors, Members of Parliament (MPs), District or City Assembly officials, Cabinet Ministers and Heads of State and Government- it is called participation without power.


“This (Participation without power) breeds voter apathy,” said Noel Msiska, Coordinator for the Southern Region chapter of Civic and Political Space Platform (CPSP) - a grouping of civil society organizations working in the area of human rights, governance and democracy.


That is not all. Even when citizens enjoy the power of participation, the challenge is that policy-makers and political leaders assume that rights of participation carry with them the ‘automatic’ prospect of tangible benefits- the truth, on the other hand, is that this is work half done. The task at hand is to establish which modes of participation, in fact, bring real development rewards, and to whom?


This realization has spurred Christian Service Committee, Association for Progressive Women and Church and Society-Blantyre C.C.A.P. Synod- CPSP member organizations in the Southern Region- into action as part of a Danish Church Aid initiative to build religious and community leaders’ capacity in readiness for next year’s Local Government Elections (LGE). And the findings were shocking.


After years of multiparty politics in Malawi, Chikhwawa people are yet to find the real meaning of democracy. At Chikhwawa National Initiative for Civic Education (NICE) offices earlier this month, religious leaders struggled to make local sense of democracy.


Chikhwawa Pastors Fraternal chairperson, Hussein Nguwo, blamed it on unpleasant experiences people have come to associate democracy with. When experiences are generally painful, they cease to be the ‘greatest teacher’; instead, they become a distraction and burden.


Over the years, Chikhwawa communities have learned to dismiss such burdens, leaving a litany of problems unresolved, he noted.


“One of the reasons is that voters are disappointed in Members of Parliament (MPs), most of whom prefer urban areas to their rural constituencies. People believe that councilors will be no different.”


It is a challenge that calls for consulted efforts, meaning: media practitioners, policy makers, political parties, development partners should continue their role of making common sense out of difficult-to-comprehend issues and providing technical and financial support; while religious leaders should continue to pray for rains, offer spiritual food, visit hospitals and prisons- they should also preach politics, responsible politics.


“With renewed hope, we can rejuvenate voters’ interest in development and politics again.” said Nguwo.


It is a step that begins with voters developing real interest in the Republican Constitution. Unfortunately, according to Msiska, the Constitution remains an elite’s domain, leaving ordinary citizens in the shadow of ignorance. Constitutions can, sometimes, become principle causes of conflicts, too. They have, throughout the history of civilized politics, provided the ground for rallying cries from communities in general, and communities of interest.


Msiska said the word Constitution, susceptible to great latitude of interpretation, would be but imperfectly understood if we supposed that people attach the same meaning to it.


“This has never been the case,” Msiska said, adding that varying levels of literacy render it impossible to land on common grounds. Even with equal qualifications, people will still fall for different tastes.


In addition to this observation, constitutions have also been employed to achieve various objects. In monarchies, constitutions were sold as implements for attaining ‘national development’; same with representative regimes, where they sought to safeguard similar ‘development’ goals, promising respect for fundamental rights; while in one party states, they propagated the policy of ‘reform’ as the object, Msiska noted.


‘Everywhere, at least, the constitution means change and trouble. However, in our case, it has largely buttressed national consensus and solidarity.”


Like all guidelines, the Constitution must also embrace two important principles: the ability to challenge accepted social mores and the latitude to make mistakes. More related to this is the principle that elected leaders must respect the generally held consensus to protect certain values while being free to challenge their (the values’) continual validity.


In so doing, there will be mistakes. As has been the experience in Malawi- on such issues as the Third Term attempt by former President Bakili Muluzi, abuse of power by the opposition during President Bingu wa Mutharika’s first (2004-2009) term, Democratic Progressive Party’s current dominance in parliament culminating in rubber-stumping of controversial bills including one to modify the National Flag- someone at some stage is bound to take a step too far.


The challenge to most Malawians, says Pastor Velias Bwanamali of Kasinthula Assemblies of God, lies in failure to respect the right of others to ‘go a step too far’, saying it is through mistakes that human beings get the best out of themselves.


In Malawi, summary judgement of politicians has become an obsession, and Bwanamali is worried. He said it was apparent that anger is taking the place of reason, offering no chance for reflection on the meaning of such issues as democracy, human rights and responsibilities.


Not all things need serious reflection, though. Some things are too obvious to be unclear, said Limbani Chipembere, Programmes Officer for Church and Society-Blantyre C.C.A.P Synod. Take, for instance, the issue of voters, monitors, candidates, and an independent electoral body- every election needs them.


The other factor is that every election has conflict built into it because elections are borne out of politics, which is a form of positive conflict- competition to achieve the common good.


Chipembere notes, however, that some seemingly obvious issues warrant reflection. One of these pertains to our voting system, the First-past-the-post. Because one can ride at the back of a single vote, the country has voter apathy sanctioned in the system.


During the 2000 LGE, for instance, political analysts faulted the electoral calendar for perpetuating the trend, yet voter apathy had been a notable feature in the 1999 Parliamentary and Presidential Elections. The argument was that, during the 2000 LGE held in November (coinciding with the onset of rains), voters narrowed their focus to their bellies and maize granaries- never ballot boxes.


The term elections’ ‘hung-over’ also cropped in. Analysts noted that just the preceding year (1999), people were on the non-paid-for lines again, voting for a Head of State and Government and MPs. The disputes that ensued after announcement of the Presidential results might have angered many, forcing them to fold the hand that stretches into the ballot box.


Just this year, during the By-Elections held in Dowa and Mangochi, voters preferred to stay home, again. The DPP MPs elected will still walk down the narrow road to the New Parliament Building in Lilongwe to represent the few who voted for the ‘many’, thanks to First-Past-the-Post system.


“This trend should spur us into reflective action. I have the feeling that MPs or councilors elected by a few do not carry much authority; ideally, the more voters turn up, the more authoritative one feels,” Chipembere said.


It is a perception shared by Vincent Chibowa, Advocacy and Communications Officer for Christian Service Committee (CSC). He said religious leaders have more influence over their congregation members, increasing the likelihood of getting voters back to the voting lines- it is merely a question of stirring the spirit that convinces target beneficiaries to stand their ground on long subsidized farm inputs’ queues.


Stirring that spirit could entail the use of a bottom-top approach in community development plans. Chibowa felt that the tendency to force development policies on people could have contributed to voter apathy.


“We need to be open-minded. Leaders should not come with preconceived ideas but strive to solicit real contributions from grassroots communities,” he said.


With open minds, organizations such as NICE have started uncovering some of the challenges. What comes clear at Chikhwawa NICE Resource Centre are issues of illiteracy, lack of accountability and transparency, difficulties to reach out to elected representatives, among others.


It seems that Chikhwawa women are left behind in terms of reading culture. From January 2009 to May 2010, the percentage of female readers has never exceeded 15 women out of every 100 males, with the lowest registered mark being 7 per cent. On the other hand, male readers always surpass the mark of 85 per cent. These are people who visit the NICE District Library, Ndife Amodzi, Chikhwawa Prison, Mtera and Sangano resource centres.


How can people who do not value reading get the right information to make informed decisions? The trend could be food-for-thought for civil society organizations advocating for 50-50 representation of women in politics and decision-making processes.


The situation is made complicated by the general inaccessibility of MPs. In the absence of councilors, MPs have come to be regarded as the first-line of call for community members, some of whom have reduced the role of an MP from law maker to coffin-buyer. Chikhwawa has registered some success in accountability levels because each Traditional Authority, Paramount Chief and Senior Chief has their mobile number publicly displayed.


But community members complained over MPs. Legislator for Chikhwawa North, Grain Malunga’s, number is missing. Same with MP for Chikhwawa South Joseph Tembo: his number, too, is missing; they are inaccessible when out of Chikhwawa.


The case is different with Chikhwawa Central legislator, Bernadetta Mlaka Maliro. Instead of furnishing only one mobile number, she has provided two.


Every society, perhaps, gets the ruler it deserves.