Bamusi says Malawi politics thriving on failed policies
Political parties and their leadership have been blamed for deliberately frustrating the implementation of the many brilliant policies in the country with an aim of creating room for campaign issues as the people’s social economic status remains pathetic.
Mabvuto Bamusi, one of the human rights activists in the country who also served as National Coordinator of the Human Rights Consultative Committee, working on issues around trade, privatization and good governance, expressed concern over the country’s many failed policies a thing he attributed to lack of political will.
“The country has policies pointing out at steps relevant to improving the water, health, education and other sectors and yet there is deliberate lack of political will aimed at creating room for Malawians to keep placing their hope on the politicians for change that never come,” said Bamusi.
Bamusi said the implementation slippage exists due to the nature of some policy recommendations that happen to be political unfriendly.
“Most policies are aimed at benefiting the public at large and not the policy makers as such those in power do deliberate sabotage of the policies for their own good,” he said.
“There are weak implementation institution capacities also affecting the implementation a thing that again highlights the lack of political will to ensure that Malawians benefit from all these policies our country has and partake in.
“Policies are part of the planning mechanism but failure to finance such plans is as good as not planning and many are the times we have experienced poor financing on our policy implementation hence the situation on the ground,” explained Bamusi.
The activist aligned the situation of failed policies with the need for community empowerment in order to demand accountability from the policy makers as well as the implementing team.
“This is where the recall provision such as Section 65 comes into play so that people are given the power to recall leaders who fail to deliver tangible development despite having policies on the ground necessitating positive change,” he emphasized.
The activist, however, tipped the just elected members of Parliament together with the to-be ministers to ensure that the 2014-2015 budget displays balancing act with more money allocated to sources of economic growth.
“Sectors like agriculture, mining and others that would help to generate economic growth need proper financing because once such sectors are well managed, the country will have enough money to support various policies aimed improving people’s living standard,” he said.
“By improving the economic growth sectors, the country will be making steps towards achieving the government’s ambitious 7.5 percent GDP and then we can easily race towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which is one of the master plan for our development as a country,” added Bamusi.
The Vision 2020, Millennium Development Goals, Economic Recovery Plan, United Nations Women Empowerment Protocol and the Disability Act, are some of the great pointers that government needs to keep inside manifestos for continuity in national development and yet Malawians have benefited so little from them.
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