So many cliches can be used to describe the conditions that Malawi is sailing through presently. We are at that point in history when everything seems not to be working and the tides are turning against us. Our biggest ailment has to do with economics, which seems to be such a tricky concept for the Tonse Alliance administration to comprehend and grab by the neck. Since they came into power, they have been making excuses for their failure to arrest inflation and the rising cost of living. But it seems excuses are just what they are.
When things started going South soon after they got into government in 2021, our leaders tried so hard to make us believe that it was the Covid-19 pandemic that had disturbed their otherwise perfect plan to economic progress. When years drifted by and Covid was no longer an issue, these big people in suits came back to the podium with a new narrative that would justify their failure – the Ukraine war. The average citizen is only left dumbfounded; wondering how a remote crisis like the war between Russia and Ukraine could lead to shortage of forex or fuel in a small southern African country that Putin has probably never heard of before. But that is just how this government operates. They blame everyone and everything else but themselves. They do not want to take responsibility for what they have not done right.
Our recent headache is the cancellation of the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is a loan facility of one hundred and seventy-five million United States dollars that the country successfully secured in 2023. Two years down the line, with only a meagre percentage of the amount disbursed, the deal has fallen off the wagon. Among other things, the IMF cite lack of fiscal discipline as one of the reasons that the arrangement had to be cancelled. The fact is that Malawi has failed to meet the conditions the two parties had agreed on when they entered the agreement.
The loss of such a lifeline is something that should worry us as a country. Countries don’t have to survive on loans, but we know that this has been our way of life. We can also not dispute that loans, if properly utilized, can see this country out of poverty. The problem we have is that we borrow money and spend it on useless things. The moment our government receives something from this white savior or another, cabinet ministers, top government officials, and those working at the state house go shopping for the latest vehicles on the market. They will draft bloated budgets for pruning loans at state residencies. They will organize trips to foreign countries – taking with them whole villages for political appeasement. This is what the IMF means by lack of discipline in handling resources. We think loans are for eating and not investing.
What is even more disheartening is the failure by the government to accept its weaknesses and make reforms. If one does not accept that something is wrong, there is no way they can improve. As stated earlier, our government loves to blame others for its failures. In the recent crisis, they claim that their failure to meet the conditions of the ECF can be attributed to exogenous factors – meaning things outside their control. But every thinking Malawian can tell that our economic problems are very much an endogenous matter. we create problems that we later fail to remedy. We are here because of corruption. We are failing to improve because there is no investment to speak of. Malawi is poor because it has chosen to be a begging country.
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It is high time that we sought leaders who are in it for a sense of duty instead of having leaders who simply want to enrich themselves to feed their bloated egos. We still have the kind of leaders who are getting rich overnight, and no one is questioning them. You look at the lifestyles of some public officials and wonder where they are getting all the resources that they are splashing out there. Until we have sensible leaders who champion discipline, there shall be no light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.
