Most people may agree that the Tonse Alliance administration has not lived up to their expectations.
It is not that this regime has done nothing for the country, but rather, there is a huge gap between what it promised and what it has managed to deliver so far.
People had a lot of hope in this government, and the eloquence of the leadership, when they stood up to speak, made us believe in delusions of grandeur that have come back to haunt us.
Political establishments always make promises and many are the times they have failed to deliver the same.
This administration will not be the first to give us a raw deal, but there are certain things that are worrying in their approach to politics.
The biggest problem we have today is that the Tonse administration is working in panic mode, something that has seen them making childish and costly decisions.
These people know that they have not done much and they are afraid that they will lose popularity. As such, they have been running amok, losing it in the process.
Just three years into their reign, this administration has made at least three blunders that are similar in nature and they seem not to learn from their own mistakes.
All these miscalculations involve money and bear the risk of wasting the few resources that we generate from our taxes.
First, it was the Bridgin Foundation deal where we saw some questionable people promising to give us a grant of $6.8 billion in exchange with things they knew themselves.
The entire leadership was lured by these people to the point of hosting them at the most prestigious chambers, expecting miracles.
The money from Bridgin—which we were told was to be invested in infrastructure development such as the construction of universities and factories— never came.
From there, the government was caught naked again engaging a United Kingdom-based butchery to supply fertiliser for the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP), a deal where taxpayers were swindled of more than K750 million. For this scandal, some people lost their jobs as the Attorney General is still trying to recover what we threw to the wind.
While we are still at this, just last week, Malawians woke up to news that this same government, through the same Ministry of Agriculture, has yet again arranged with a pharmaceutical company to supply us with fertiliser worth billions of our dying currency.
Considering what precedence has for us, one may think this is a joke, but no; we just have leaders who do not really care about this country.
Our leadership is failing to understand the consequences of such desperate moves, not only on this weak economy, but also on the reputation of the country.
We cannot be known as that country that can easily be duped by con artists from every corner of the world.
All these questionable deals and arrangements are purely a result of desperation in the governing alliance.
The problem with politicians in this country is that they think less about the masses and the nation and more about themselves and their fortunes.
Knowing that they have failed to deliver that heaven they promised us, these people want to take any shortcut they can find to the said promised land.
And we know what happens when someone is desperate in things to do with money – they become vulnerable and end up being prey to predators who always roam the night in search of easy catches.
Someone needs to tell our political leaders that there are no shortcuts to social and economic prosperity.
The countries we admire today and that we aspire to be like took several decades of determination, sacrifice and hard work to be where they are today.
Singapore did not develop because of some foundation that gave them a grant. China is not where it is because some pharmacy gave them a cheap deal.
America is not great today because they struck a deal with some butchery. These people had to set goals and realistic ways of achieving the same. Leaders who worry more about safeguarding their political positions than serving the nation will always fail in the grand scheme of things.
