Bring Nsanje Dyke culprits to book
Malawi will continue to remain a warm heart, smiling in the way of approaching ruthless poverty, if the political thought does not transform.
The country needs leaders who should be willing to stand for and champion agendas that advance the national interest.
But what the country has at present is governing of a nation without clear political ideology, which is a contradiction in the practice of politics by political parties in the multiparty dispensation.
In the process, the nation is witnessing institutionalisation of corruption.
This has retarded development during the democratic dispensation since 1994. Indeed, the country has experienced constrained growth and development over the past 25 years of democracy.
The Nsanje Dyke tale serves as the best example of failure of government systems.
Recall, recently, Vice-President Saulos Chilima, in his capacity as Minister of Disaster Management Affairs, in February this year condemned the 823-metre earth dyke which cost over K290 million, saying it cannot withstand serious floods.
Commissioner for Disaster Management Affairs and Secretary to the Vice President Clement Chinthu Phiri, is on record to have distanced his department from the implementation of the project.
The World Bank has also clearly said the bank was only a financier not an implementer of the dyke project; hence, the bank did not identify the contractor who did substandard work on the project.
But what is obvious is that millions were lost.
And it is a standard practice anywhere in the world that workers that misappropriate or fail to properly protect or give full account of resources meant for a particular job are axed and prosecuted to the full extent of the law and all the ill-gotten gains returned to the rightful owners.
Yet the stakeholders touched by the most shameful and shoddy work of Nsanje Dyke seem to live in a different world where none of the afore-mentioned seem certain to happen and the widely acknowledged terms-of-reference for the job they were hired to do seem irrelevant and our managers, therefore, seem most likely to be allowed to live another day.
It is gross inhuman for some persons to misuse millions of kwacha meant for the project that would save property and lives of many Malawians in flood-prone areas.
As such, while reconstruction is part of the solution, it is a requirement that those who are responsible for the initial sloppy work must be held accountable.
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