When a nation is dead
Not surprising that yet another report published in June this year put Malawi at the rock bottom of another development index.
The Gazette View rated Malawi as most poorest and underdeveloped nation in the world.
Not surprising that the only government official to speak to the report, Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe, has attempted to downplay it by expressing discomfort with the Gross Domestic Product of $226. 26 instead $400 which he claims obtains on the ground.
Malawians of all shades have debated the report on the social media but that is where it will end.
The DPP government would have its wish that Malawians forget the report as soon as possible so that we all go back to our ways to wait for another report which will more or less paint the same picture.
This is what happens when a nation is dead and it is being led by a dead leadership. It accepts mediocrity and does not get angry with it.
For all intents and purposes, there is nothing new that we do not know that the report has said. Most development indices put Malawi as the poorest.
When reports such as this come out, they are supposed to make us feel sorry for ourselves to be followed by an over boiling anger that would drive us to overturn this sad state of affairs.
But this can only make a difference if it can only start with the leadership getting to be angriest among us all.
But President Peter Mutharika and his members of the Cabinet will not. In fact, expecting them to get angry about Malawi’s poverty is tantamount to asking an elephant to go through an eye of a needle.
It is impossible.
What they will do instead is to tear apart the report and give us a litany of falsehoods detailing the empty programmes that they will claim they instituted to end poverty but which we all know have not even made a dent on this evil state of affairs among Malawians.
They will go back to their comatose state and keep the same expensive habits that drain all the little resources that this country generates to keep on grandstanding and cheating Malawians that things will be better one day.
As long as the President has his multitudinous State houses, his mile long convoy and other extravagant perks, he does not see any reason to come out of his cocoon at Plot Number 1 and confront the poverty that is afflicting the majority of tax-paying hardworking Malawians.
As long as the ministers have their fuel guzzling VXs and they get their 1000 litres of fuel every month as if they are maluwa soap salesmen and drive from Chitipa to Nsanje, Nkhotakota to Mchinji, they will not get angry about somebody saying Malawi anchors the poverty table.
As long as the presidential aides are able to milk the system and sell influence to highest bidders which enables them to build houses in multiples, they will not care about media reports about Malawi being the poorest.
As long as corruption continues to thrive where the little tax we pay is mercilessly stolen instead of buying drugs for your grandmother and mine, this country will continue being at the rock bottom of any index that anybody can decide to come up with using any criteria they can dream of.
As for us the citizens and lesser mortals, as long as we stay mute and tolerate this state of affairs where our country is literally being raped in broad daylight by a cabal of few elites that care more for themselves than the rest of us, the name of our country will continue to be a source of shame as it stays put at the bottom of the world.
We will have a bad mismanaged economy, no water, no electricity (Escom were at it this week giving us another round of their annual excuses about water level in Shire River), no drugs in hospitals, no books in classrooms, farmers crying about tobacco prices, the list can go on forever until cows come home.
It is what happens when a nation is dead. It loses its moral compass and its conscience is long dead. It suffers the inevitable consequences of crushing and teeth gnashing poverty and hopelessness.
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