Waste not our time, Mr Finance Minister
After frantic attempts to win civil society leaders to his side over his K4 Billion magic money debacle, it is clear that Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe has finally run out of aces.
He has tried to spew different kind of stories at every given opportunity and unfortunately, nobody appears to be buying Gondwe’s concocted truths.
All well meaning Malawians have now seen through his scheme that the Honourable Minister was up to mischief by wanting to illegally splash his largesse to a selected group of Members of Parliament, especially those who towed the government line in voting against the much needed electoral reforms bills which could have cleared bottle necks, such as the ones that characterised the May 2014 tripartite elections.
It was inconsiderate of the Finance Minister to embark on this ‘capital extravaganza’ in Parliament when just a couple of days earlier, he had told the same House that his budget was facing serious funding challenges due to under collection by the tax authority and delayed support from development partners.
Come to think of it, how would a budget that had some of its votes revised downwards end up with a surplus of cash that could be splashed around, with no clear purpose and justification for spending?
Despite his insistence that there was nothing wrong with the transaction which he had wanted to implement behind Parliament’s back, the public which has keenly observed the happenings is aware that Gondwe and his Local Government colleague Kondwani Nankhumwa were out to skin them alive of their hard earned tax money by taking the same to reward Democratic Progressive Party loyalists and sympathisers in Parliament.
We applaud the civil society for remaining resolute when they came face to face with Gondwe for their round table discussions and we are not surprised that they are not relenting with their call for Gondwe’s ouster at the Treasury.
It is clear that the old man has run out of ideas and is not the Goodall of yester years who basked in the glory of even wowing the international community.
The Finance Minister should stop taking Malawians for granted and indeed wasting our time by lying through his teeth regarding his K 4 billion magic money.
We expect nothing less than his resignation and Malawians will not stop until that is served.
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