If you desire to have impeccable lessons in leadership failure, you have President Lazarus Chakwera as a typical example.
The man came to power on the promise of paradise, sufficiently hiding all his failings which, now that he is drunk with power and splendour, he is putting on show for all to see.
Perhaps, if during the heated campaign ahead of the court-sanctioned presidential election in 2020, Chakwera had tempered his avalanche of promises, we would not be feeling deceived by his present ruse.
At a time Malawians were in desperate need of leadership that would cast aside nepotism and cronyism and show he would be on the top seat to steer Malawi to prosperity, Chakwera happened.
Today, all we see him accomplishing is moving from one mundane event to another even when the probability of delegating someone else makes more sense.
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Well, it is clear that the whole leadership of the Tonse Alliance—this pragmatic term we deploy in describing this Malawi Congress Party-led administration—is failing to govern on many fronts including the economy and fighting corruption.
The Ministry of Finance seems to be clueless on economic policies that should turn around Malawi’s fortunes and address the ever-growing challenges people are facing.
It is very clear that the shoes are too big for Sosten Gwengwe at the Ministry of Finance.
He has reduced his office to one which champions the drawing of money bills for Parliament to approve. In most cases, there are clear elements of borrowing simply because he feels he has to.
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After scads of calls that government’s appetite for loans should be condensed, Gwengwe continues taking to Parliament bill after bill for projects that will be useless in no time.
He may claim that some of the loans that are coming up now date from years back and that it is only now that the processes have been finalised.
But, still, there is the possibility of cancelling such loans if assessments show they will not really benefit Malawians.
Then there is the Ministry of Agriculture, which has been fighting very hard to retain its position as the country’s most negligent top portfolio.
After previous messes which characterised the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP), we thought a solution had been found and that senseless payments would be eschewed.
Now, reports indicate the deal that government entered with Romanian firm East Bridge Estate may eventually culminate in Malawi losing billions of Kwacha in breach of contract settlements.
Sam Kawale has always projected a sense of a Cabinet minister who will not smile at any needless chaos in his ministry.
In fact, after his appointment as Minister of Agriculture, some of us had our doubts about him efficiently doing his job.
He vindicated our misgivings when he went public to defend the East Bridge deal even when observers had persistently argued it looked too good to be true.
The deal only fell a few inches short of the theatrical Bridgin Foundation, one about which then Minister of Information Gospel Kazako accused Malawians of harbouring the poverty mindset.
Well, it is true that most ministers in Chakwera’s Cabinet have very little experience in managing the portfolios they are holding, but there also are technocrats in the ministries from whom they were supposed to learn.
The bigger challenge, however, remains that Chakwera himself seems very oblivious to important governance issues.
Contrariwise, he is less interested in being the leader that Malawians want as long as what he does satisfies his appetites and those of his cronies.
Otherwise, how does one explain his numerous foreign trips in the midst of a forex crisis that keeps recurring?
Just days after Treasury announced austerity measures apparently aimed at saving forex whose scarcity has had a huge mark on fuel supply, Chakwera hopped onto a plane on his way to the Sadc summit in Angola.
From there, he is proceeding to South Africa for the Brics meeting.
Well, it might be necessary that he attends both meetings, but, in the current economic crisis in his country, there is no harm in delegating someone else.
A presidential trip abroad is not your usual outing. Thousands of dollars are spent. And in a forex crisis, every dollar counts.
It becomes even outlandish to see the President having an insatiable desire for foreign excursions after his government has preached austerity measures.
He was supposed to lead the way.
In fact, the lower officers who are being barraged with a load of restrictions drain a very minute fraction of what Chakwera does.
It is clear that the whole austerity measures are a mere scheme of deception— just like Chakwera’s promise of a better Malawi—aimed at deluding Malawians that their government cares.
