In November 2023, international news outlet Al jazeera published an article that screamed ‘Malawi’s President Suspends Foreign Travel for Himself and Cabinet Members’.
For neutrals, the headline was innocent – talking about a man who is serious about saving the meagre resources of his country. But the critical eye could read the blatant sarcasm painted all over that news article.
Here was a man who, being unsure about what he might do next, goes on a podium to ban himself from possible future indulgences – guilty pleasures, if you like.
But, of course, the President is a man of his words. He loves the word, a testimony of his gracious history as a pastor. It is the word that got him his position and the word will see him through by telling us this while doing that.
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Two months or so after declaring that there should be no foreign trips for himself and other big dogs who run this country, the President felt it necessary to travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to party with that country’s president on his swearing-in ceremony and, of course, to discuss matters of regional security.
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We must understand that, being a man of his word, the President had to forget what he said in November and make this very important trip.
This is not the first time that the President has ‘lived up’ to our expectations. If there is one thing that the big man has proven to us in his almost four years in power, it is the fact that he is consistent.
By now, those who have carefully followed President Chakwera can no longer be surprised by what he says and what he does. One can count on their fingers the promises that he fulfilled since his ascension to power against the bulk of what we expected from his campaign speeches.
You don’t even need to have two hands to count. Our president often says things that he will not do and he rarely follows the light of his wishful thinking.
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What worries us is that the President’s actions become points of enablement for chaos in State agencies and departments.
It may be true that the big man was in the DRC for a very important assignment but that is difficult for us to believe because he has not lived up to his word before on matters we had full information on.
To give a painful example, this is a man who promised to reform the public service in order to make it more efficient and curtail corruption, but he ended up doing nothing about this.
He assigned Vice President Saulos Chilima to come up with a report on public sector reforms – a document that came and was hidden in one of the bedrooms of power. It was at that moment that we realised that, ah! This is an accident!
Since his hands could not handle the piece of charcoal burning in that report, those who are corrupt and crooked in the public sector knew that Chakwera’s reign would be another honeymoon.
No wonder, reports still indicate that corruption is on the rise in the country. Public service is as inefficient and it has always been and there seems to be no end in sight to these woes.
One also wonders how far the austerity measures that the President announced in November have gone in terms of implementation.
If they are failing to implement things we can see with our naked eyes, like banning foreign trips, what more with what we cannot get our hands on?
Are we sure that their fuel allocations were reduced and that these people are not conducting meetings outside their workstations? How can we be sure when even the president is not sure?
The problem with not living up to your word is that people don’t take you seriously no matter how serious you want to appear. And there is nothing as infuriating as your word not holding any grip on those it should.
It is highly unlikely that the large crop of mischievous public servants will heed the President’s directives today or in the future because they know that his is just talk. We will continue to sail in this turbulent sea towards a wreck since the captain of the ship is deaf to his own words
