By Wesley Macheso
The moment Donald Trump was sworn in as the 48th president of the United States, he went straight to business. Trump made a lot of noise, including threats and promises, during his campaign and he is making sure that whatever he said should come to pass. This is why we have witnessed him signing executive orders in order to implement what he promised. While some of these orders will negatively affect us, one thing we cannot dispute is that Trump is a man of action— one who lives by his word.
Now compare that to our situation here. The incompetence of politicians has made us believe that political campaigns are just arenas for peddling lies to the masses. Over the years, politicians have lied to us so much that we no longer believe what they say. Whoever trained our politicians must have been a very bad teacher for all of them seem to be beating the same drum of deception. Case in point, whatever the Tonse Alliance promised when they campaigned in 2020 has not materialised. The price of basic commodities has gone up, we are not eating three times a day, the corrupt have not been arrested and the jobs they promised have not been created, just to mention but a few.
What is even more alarming is that there seems to be lack of State control over affairs in this country. For the first time, we have lived with a fuel crisis for more than six months with no solutions in site. Black market traders are all over the country disrupting the already intermittent supply of the commodity and law enforcement is doing nothing about it. The situation is worse in cities such as Zomba, where pumps are consistently dry, killing small businesses. But as is always the case, somebody somewhere is benefitting from this crisis and the law just watches.
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This lack of control is hitting us hard when it comes to prices of goods and other essential services on the market. Our economy has become so messed up that traders are deciding prices of commodities arbitrarily without any consequences.
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If you bought bread for K2,500 today, you should not be surprised to find it at K2,800 tomorrow. When you ask why that is the case, the shop owner will tell you that the dollar, which was selling at K3,400 on the black-market yesterday, is now at K3,600, hence the rise in prices. That is how desperate our situation is—the economy is being determined by forces on parallel markets because the legitimate market collapsed a long time ago. One wonders what the Ministry of Trade is doing amidst all this mess. One thing for sure is that nobody is in control of this sinking ship.
When you consider this bigger picture, it becomes ridiculous to see the State House trying to emulate Trump’s executive orders by posting what they are calling “presidential decisions”. We are trying to emulate action instead of taking action on things that really matter. Among the presidential decisions is a realisation by the presidency that military parades, women’s dances and speeches at the airport, when the President is travelling, disrupt airport services and should not continue. It took this government more than four years to realise that and they want Malawians to take them seriously. We should not be surprised when, in the next few months, we hear that the government did not know that our market forces are being determined by the black market. It is either that those in charge are too slow to act or they are just clueless. Either way, the country bleeds from their incompetence.
While we hoped for a brighter future with the ushering in of a new regime in 2020, Malawians have been heavily disappointed with the performance of the Tonse Alliance. Theirs is an experiment that has gone wrong and they seem to have no ideas on how to make things right. The country is on autopilot and anything goes at the moment. It has become a breeding ground for corruption and those engaged in illegal and informal activities are the ones prospering. It is almost impossible for any legitimate business to thrive in this country. Those who depend on salaries can barely afford basic life. There is no future here.
