We can do better
Tuesday, President Peter Mutharika was inspiring when he launched the ambitious blue print designed to guide our development in the coming years.
Mutharika described the strategic plan as a collection of hopes and dreams of the people, the convictions and aspirations of our nation.
He claimed that the strategy is a home-grown policy for developing our country as we understand and know it.
This has been the story at every launch. We remember Vision 20:20 launched by then President Bakili Muluzi whose aspiration was to have a God fearing nation by year 2020, democratically mature, environmentally sustainable, self- reliant with equal opportunities for and active participation by all, having social services, vibrant cultural and religious values and being a technologically driven middle-income economy.
We are two years from 2020, and have we achieved that? Is our country even close to becoming a technologically driven middle income country?
Of course not.
We also do remember the launch of the Malawi Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which sought to eradicate poverty, ensure environmental sustainability among many other goals
We are still far from achieving that.
Over the years, Malawi has launched many other strategic development plans and we still remain a very poor country because over the last few decades, our dreams and aspirations captured in these strategic documents have yielded but nothing.
In the meantime, Malawi has been reduced to the poorest nation in the world by GDP per capita measure and that, is embarrassing because we are a peaceful country and abundantly blessed with a fresh water lake, fertile soils and minerals.
This is the reason why we are skeptical about the MGDS III, whose theme is ‘Building a Productive, Competitive and Resilient Nation.
We understand it is a medium-term strategy designed to contribute to Malawi’s long-term development aspirations.
The K8.6 trillion 2017-2022 strategy focuses on agriculture, water development and climate change management, education and skills development, energy, industry and tourism development, transport and ICT infrastructure and health and population
The document like the others before it, strategically focuses on priority sectors that Malawi needs to invest in and improve on to realise the many dreams and aspirations of many of our people.
But the question is why should we believe that this one is going to work?
Is it because of incompetence or are we just a cursed nation that does not know what it wants?
This is why we infinitely agree with the observations and comments made by the Malawi Economic Justice Network (Mejn) and the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI) on how we should implement the third Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS III).
We agree that it is our responsibility to make sure that we invest in implementing the strategy if we are to see any transformation that we seek.
If we do not do that and we continue with the narrative, we might as well forget about what we hope to see at the end of the day.
A vibrant writer who gives a great insight on hot topics and issues
