Where is the President? Muckraking Extra
“We must be careful with Peter’s seeming quietude,” so irreverently wrote my young colleague Mada Musa last Friday on his no-holds-all-barred Tales of Times column in The Daily Times, “because we might be thinking the old man has locked himself somewhere thinking about the nation yet he is asleep and snoring heavily.”
The kwacha is in a free-fall now. It has cruised past 500 units to the mighty green buck, a 20 percent depreciation in two months.
Ok, Joyce Banda devalued the local currency by a whopping 49 percent and let it float. This after her eccentric predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika resisted any tinkering of the kwacha against the wise counsel from the Bretton Woods institutions and local economists.
The Big Kahuna even famously advised the Chikaondas of this world to go rinse their brain in Omo for advising him it was high time he eased control over the kwacha.
Of course after Ama released the kwacha prices of goods and services shot right through the roof. But donors came to her rescue and injected nearly a billion dollars into the economy. The kwacha stabilised, we no longer needed to wait for three months just to get US $500 in banks and fuel queues that characterised Bingu’s reign in the twilight of his life suddenly disappeared.
But now we are back where we were two years ago, the kwacha is in a tailspin, prices of goods and services are going south…I shudder to imagine us back to chasing water bowsers thinking they are fuel tankers!
Actually, if the truth be told, the salary increases we celebrated in the civil service are now useless for their nominal value has been wiped out.
And yet State House is behaving as if everything is normal. We know there is not much President Mutharika can do but we at least need assurances that our leader is aware of the situation and is doing something about it.
When Barack Obama suffered a ‘shellacking’ at the mid-term elections last week, the US president quickly summoned the opposition Republican leaders to the White House. Peter, too, must acknowledge we are in a crisis and has to assure us he is doing something about it.
We appreciate he is not on the road daily. But he can still assure us he is in control from the confines of his office.
RIP mr APm!!!!! kupita mofulumira nthawi isanakwane!!!
I think we (Malawians) deserve this cause we voted for cashgaters back in power. may be by Gods intef. or 2019………………….
Raphael Tenthani and his friends deliberately ignore important facts when trying to paint a bad picture of DPP and Peter while at the same time glorifying Joyce Banda. I thought the issue of the floating our currency was debated and concluded, I remember even people organised street protests on this subject. It is not this DPP which embraced this monetary policy and it is no longer an option to fix our currency. Even what Tenthani is suggesting, being meeting with the opposition, is out of the question because MCP has never been willing to work with the government because it… Read more »
Mbola, Pitalayu seems has no idea of how to go about with the situation or else timatcha ndithu
Ena mwainu mukuonangati ziribwino.Msova! .Zizakhala bwino federation yikatheka.Apo bii musova Agalu inu
gentlemen and ladies please think first before you speak. Are you not aware that its dollars that can keep our money strong? Are you not aware of the donors suspending flow of dollars ? Lets withstand the heat and learn to stand on our own by exporting more of our products abroad How? Improve our products by adding more value and eventually we will be self reliant. The sons of Israel had to face tough time before being liberated. Kumaona kaye chatsitsa dzaye kuti njobvu iphyoke nyanga.
ine mwini dzina Chinkombaleza gumanyundo gowa
ulibe nzeru!!!
No. 19 , Jay, you must be one of those blind and stupid DPP loyalists . How can you say that JB’s policies are to blame for Mathanyula’s failed leadership of this country? As the current president of this country, doesn’t he have the right to discard JB’s “failed” fiscal policies and implement his own brilliant policies?
Tikulira pali pano ndi APM, NDI CHIPANI CHAWO CHA DPP. Amai JB pa zaka ziwiri zinthu zinali kuyenda.Koma amalawi tikufuna kuona zomwe m’bale wao anatichira asanafe dziko lathu lomwe kumabvutika nalo.Tangoonani moto ndi uwu ukungoononga zithu za eni komaso mafuta ndi awa akwera pasanathe miyezi 6. Maziphuzitsi ndi awa malipiro sanalandire.Amalawi za Cashgate zinayamba ndi a DPP OMWEWA,
I hear people on this forum saying that we elected a president blah!blah! The truth of the matter is that nobody elected this president. He bulldozed his way into office with the help of MEC and Mbendera. The DPP rigging syndicae made sure that their desired candidate got into power at the state house so that the corruption and swindling of our state resources continues. Does it surprise you that this inept big headed man has no clue as to what is going on in this country? In fact I am surprised at the docility and the way our military… Read more »
hahaha malawi wafikapo ndalama kuchita kusowa ngati thako la njoka, apulezidenti ali kunyumba kugona,