I have a video clip in which State Vice President Michael Usi is asking a contractor to state exactly when they will be done with a public project.
At one point, the Vice President is seen holding a book, which is probably working as a notebook.
From the look of things, here is a man who is serious about what he is doing. From the look of things, he wants things to be working properly.
What is working properly? It [working properly] simply means the timely completion of public projects. Working properly means civil and public servants reporting for work at the set time and knocking off at the set time— and not earlier.
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Working properly means people being hired on merit, and not based on where they come from. Working properly means ensuring that local public hospitals are well equipped, in terms of both personnel and equipment, so that the government can stop spending a lot of money on foreign referrals.
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In fact, working properly means the government providing money to contractors in time, so that the contractors can buy materials, pay workers, service site machinery, buy fuel and make some profit.
Unfortunately for Malawi, the government has been ‘behaving’ as some confused fella, with no real purpose and sense of direction.
Put the other way, the government has been ‘behaving’ like a broke dude who vomits and, then, eats the vomited material because the pockets are empty and the waste material is the only source of hope.
For an example on how the government has been behaving like some broke dude, just look at the many road and other projects that have stalled across the country.
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The contractors I know have told me that it has been some time after they were last given money for implementation of public projects.
Some of the owners of such firms have informed me that they have gone to the extent of borrowing money from the banks just to pay their workers after some workers have sought recourse in the law courts.
Others [workers] have even gone to labour officers, which are strewn across the country, to submit complaints.
When the contractors tell the workers that they [contractors] have no money because the government has not been paying up, the workers take none of that.
Instead, they remind the employers that they [workers] have stomachs to fill with food. They tell the employers that they have children and other dependents to feed.
They also remind the employers that they have people they pay fees for and that they have to buy clothes and pay minibus conductors money whenever they move from one place to another.
Of course, these are valid reasons and no one can fault the workers because they signed contracts with their employers, such that each party has to fulfill its obligations.
But, again, the employers are right.
When the government delays payment, they cannot always rush to commercial banks because, if the truth be told, local banks are like vendors—they are out to milk something out of you and me, instead of being development focused.
In fact, if the government-forsaken contractors get loans from banks, all their profits will evaporate through punitive interest rates that commercial banks exact on the borrower. It is a quandary.
That is why I could not believe it when I saw Usi taking that well-meaning contractor to task over something of the government’s own making.
The government, being supposedly ‘broke’, has not been paying some contractors in this country. How, then, can the contractors be taken to task for ‘delaying’ projects?
It does not make sense. It is the ‘broke’ government that should blame itself instead.
