Dzuka Malawi: Your Excellency, Mtambo is becoming a liability

I had to take a break due to Covid-19. I could not write or think properly. Thank God we are still surviving. For how long, that is a K6.2 billion question which Government of the Republic of Malawi is trying all hard to hide.

Forget what President Lazarus Chakwera promised, a report within 48 hours or you will be fired. Well the unlucky nobody’s got fired instantly, Co-Chairperson of the Task Force John Phuka and a few other sacrificial lambs.

I was interested in the fate of Deputy Director at the Department of Disaster , Fyabupi Mwafongo, whose position was filled less than seven days after he was arrested by an MCP operative. It seems the cleansing has names of the northerners to be replaced quickly.

The week had enough bad stories, a few party operatives without any public service experience were appointed as deputy in public bodies. The President words mean something.

As someone commented on the picture of President and his deputy assessing Ministers literally translated “Osawadziwa awiriwa nkumati ali serious” hit the right mode. Nobody thinks the President is serious nor his vice. This feeling is fast becoming everyday narrative.

I asked someone what it meant, she told after having photos of two discussing cabinet in 2020 the Cabinet that came out was worse than Peter Mutharika’s. It was a Family and Lilongwe Affair. I agreed with the observation, perhaps the President need not to hype his cabinet before announcing it, again his word and action are far apart.

Amid such a serious national crisis and embarrassment to a government that promised a clean beginning, the President decided to spread the inquiry into K6,2 billion to something like review of allowances, hide the initial report and pretend to have an audit for months.

All the signs are that the Government wants Malawians to move on. It wants Malawians to stop asking it to account. They want Malawians to talk of something else other than K6.2 billion which is a deep scar on Tonse Administration credentials.

Guess how they do it, they set Timothy Mtambo to play jokes with the public. For starters Timothy Mtambo is excess baggage in Cabinet. Gospel Kazako can handle the element of civic education as a department in the information Ministry. Malawians don’t need an extra expensive to keep cartoon.

Mtambo has been whining that Northerners hate him or are pulling him down. It’s sad to see the man we feted as our revolutionary leader now desperately looking like a cartoon, his story is incoherent and his responses lacking.

Government should have never hired PROs for the Ministers. In trying to convince their poor imaged bosses of good work, they are now causing extensive damage to the already soiled reputations.

Mtambo’s script was badly written, hospital pharmacies don’t sale drugs at night to non-patients, normal thieves would try to get to the next exit and not drive 500km inland in a stolen car, a porthole cannot cause a damage to door or side mirror and the alleged beaten driver pictures were never released.

Looking at the silence from the Presidency when a Cabinet Members is involved in such issues, two things come in mind, his script was approved by his authorities. The only reason one can think of its K6.2 billion narrative.

By June 23 when President Chakwera will be one year in office, most of his Cabinet will be soiled by corruption or by being childish as Mtambo is doing. Instead of uniting Malawians he is becoming toxic and divisive. He singled out northerners as those people fighting him.

Nobody is fighting Mtambo. It’s his quest for cheap publicity and baby cries that makes him a waste of our taxes. He does not speak for Northern Region, neither does he represent views of the people there. He lost his clout to politics. He can’t speak while he is eating.

Tonse Government has been systematically removing Northerners in crucial positions and leave a few as token ones. If Mtambo wants to speak, let him get notes from those in the know and stop playing fake kidnapping games.

The worst part for President Chakwera and his Minister of Homes Affairs Richard Chimwendo, Mtambo’s foolish stunts projects Malawi as insecure for business or any right-thinking investor. Coming days after SKCs office was broken to. Deputy Defence Minister Sendeza house was robbed, citizens are being hacked, Police reported on looting spree, it’s time for the President to show some muscle and fire at least a Minister for misconduct. What Mtambo did was a national embarrassment, per culinary embarrassment, to the President, Cabinet and the whole Nation. Dr. Kamuzu Banda, the only President with a spine could have not only arrested him but fired him.

Government image is already in tatters, theft by Ministers (See MAREP, Fuel deal and Covid 19 funds) it does not need Mtambo to add to these bad stories.  The horror stories of current corruption will all break out soon, keeping people like Mtambo won’t help the President. I would suggest he be appointed to a diplomatic post like Ambassador to Russia.