The paradox of Malawi maize: Malawi is lacking sober economists who can be custodians of accountability
When I sit down and make a reflection on what is happening in our Warm Heart of Africa (Malawi), though no longer warm, I feel somehow baffled, betrayed and suspicious about the affairs of the land.
Building a case on James Martin’s observations pasted on Facebook on 1st April, 2017, there are a lot of commonalities in his articulation than differences can try to hold in this articulation.
Few days passed, if my medulla oblongata cannot betray me, there was a state declaration that our Malawi Defense Force (MDF) should leave their barracks and tighten our porous borders following the syndicate that maize and tobacco have grown legs and try to cross borders illegally. The most noticeable pathways are Chitipa and Songwe borders of northern Malawi.
As a matter of reminding one another, this is not the first time that MDF career has been misallocated, misplaced and misused. They were at one point sent to guard forests of treeless Chikangawa and Dzalanyama (I hope they are still there).
A question or two to pose here: what is the role of forest guards in such a situation? Or – Has the MDF training school incorporated forest protection in their curriculum under the neo-system of reforms? Even unschooled villager in my home area in Mpherembe can see the misallocation of human resource without necessarily telling him. What is the rationale of training police officers and MRA staff if soldiers bypass them? Does it portray that we have more soldiers than police officers in the country? If yes, then alternate the intake.
The second thing which has baffled me to the extreme is the maize found on the seventeen trucks impounded in Chitipa. Very recently we were talking about the shortage of maize and we hurriedly borrowed huge sums of money to procure the disputed grain in Zambia (I hope we have not cleared all the grain from Zambia).
Within a very thin space of time we are found exporting the very scarce commodity. Where is the logic? Who did the survey that we have no grain in Malawi to courageously conclude the findings and start borrowing without any form of remorse?
In a matter of analysis, Malawi is lacking the Joseph of Egypt to read the events (sober economists who can be custodians of accountability) in crucial times like these. Where are we going? A prudent act in this scam is to return the scarce grain to silos for the next hunger season. Even street dogs can laugh at our strategic plan.
- Writer: Colby Kumwenda is a doctoral student in South Korea doing Theology and Economics. For more details, write him on [email protected]