Kachaje: Cancer needs Chemotherapy not Panado
Malawi is a sick nation, socially, politically and economically. While speaking during the consecration of the Very Reverend Father George Desmond Tambala as Bishop of Zomba Diocese, our President lamented; “We are full of cynicism and we have no faith in ourselves as a nation. We want change but we don’t want to change. We want to take a positive direction but yet we are blinded by negative attitudes”. He went further to explain that the spiritual health of a country determines the thinking, the attitudes and the character of a nation.
More than 50 years ago we included in our national anthem prayer, one of our core spiritual diseases – envy. In Vision 2020, we stated: “Malawians have low self-esteem. They have no confidence in local products and in their culture. The challenge is to restore self -confidence and pride in being Malawian. Malawians must also be assertive and confident and be free from servitude and low self-esteem.”
We seem to have complicated matter when we adopted a liberal type of democracy and our tribal and regionalisticpolitics isn’t working. Even the President acknowledged this when opening the 46th session of Parliament; “Mr Speaker Sir, this is the time for us to shape our destiny with a common mindset. But sadly our democracy seems to have taken away our national duty and sense of responsibility. Our style of democracy seems to be our curse more than a blessing for us”.
Why then, despite knowing our problems, we have remained underdeveloped and non-progressive? Simple; we are not yet ready to undergo the painful chemotherapy treatment that is needed to heal us. We still prefer taking Panado just to relieve some of our pain temporarily. We know our style of democracy isn’t working but we are not ready to do an honest and sober assessment and do things differently.
We have been implementing the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) II for about five years now. We planned to have economic growth of above 6% each of the five years. Sadly, there has been no single year when we registered economic growth of 6% and above. What we have achieved is deepening poverty, growing inequality and the poor have become poorer. We have miserably failed economically but we are not ready to change. We are not willing to undergo chemotherapy. We prefer taking Panado to relieve the pain temporarily.
Every Malawian democratically elected President has “successfully” managed to leave the economy worse off than how he/she found it, leaving the poor, poorer. Each government has abused chiefs and paraded them on National Television to deepen the political divide. Each government has come up with tramped up treason charges for members of the opposition. Each government has refused to listen to technocrats and denied them space to administer economic therapy. As a result, we are stuck in poverty and we are sinking deeper and deeper.
“But our children will never forgive us for wasting time and failing to develop Malawi now. History will never forgive us”, says our concerned president, Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika. Well, since you are in the driving seat Mr President, we are all waiting for direction from you Sir. Do we continue taking Panado, or you will be the brave one to switch to chemotherapy?
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WA congress I think your problem is simple comprehension. It is you who must shut up!
Kachaje, you are right, we need chemotherapy and not panadol to treat cancer. However, you miss the point always! the worst panadol of your times (in fact, its not a panadol even, but a sugar coated pills with useless ingredients is RELIGION, a belief in something with evidence! Praying to some incompletent imarginary jewish friend, over 2000 years old! That is worse than treating cancer with panadol
Thank you Kachaje for the article. I think the crux of your message is about the leadership to be pragmatic. For instance, if the leadership is talking abut austerity it should vividly be seen that they are practicing it. If the leadership is talking about stamping out corruption it has to be evident in their actions etc. By the way, much as we have to be diverse in opinion, @1 levelheaded, do you really put the nation first or your whatever inclination makes you so blind to empathize with majority of Malawians who are going through socioeconomic woes largely because… Read more »
In my life if I have read soundless comments then they are from you Levelheaded. To you my fellow commentators who have found time to commenting on this article, I do welcome your concerns. I have been reading and following some articles from people who call themselves economists. Frankly speak I have never read a touching article that if we were to use it then it would develop Malawi. I am currently not in Malawi and I must say I left malawi years ago. Malawi as a country faces a lot of problems and in my understanding the major problem… Read more »
We have chosen to call our system of government ‘multi-party democracy’, but a better name for it might be ‘confrontational democracy’ – or ‘obstructionist democracy’. If the primary goal of our opposition parties has been to confront and obstruct successive governments in their attempts to promote development, they have certainly succeeded. What we need to develop is a system that is competitive only during a brief pre-election period, once every four or five years, and collaborative for the rest of the time. What we see today are the consequences of perpetual confrontation and obstruction. For as long as our political… Read more »
Chief, you are just as useless! You agonize but offer no tangible solutions. As an economist, as you want all of us to believe you are, you simply talked about the MGDS and its failures without advancing any solutions. If your arguments are meant for the government to notice you and then take over Gooddall Gondwe, you should have the balls to say so, otherwise just shut up!
What is the purpose of writing what I have just read here? Definitely if we continue to write fables there won’t be the realisation of the 6% appreciation as projected. How many times should people say that instead of fault finding what we must do is bring up pragmatic solutions? The problem has been that when him (APM) initiates a project there are too people whose sole aim is to shoot down anything the government has planned. If the opposition wants to work in isolation from the government projects then let them wait till their opportune time comes throw the… Read more »
Chemotherapy is very painful but the right medication for Cancer, while Panado is not painful but not the right medication for Cancer. The question is ,are Malawians ready to take the painful medication for proper treatment, or once we are put on the painful treatment we will all be crybabies? I know most Malawians will cry on top of their voices but this will be only for a short period of time and Malawi will be healed and start enjoying the fruits. So Mr president, Mr Kachaje has shown the way and its only up to you to implement measures… Read more »
We have had able presidents in Malawi but when elected, the opposition is too much for him/her to resist backfiring. Bingu was Mutharika did well in his first term because Malawians changed on where to direct their criticism, we criticised the opposition and fell in love with our elected government and the result was we gave morale to Bingu that he feared letting us down. Bingu did well because he wanted to please the majority who had fallen in love with him. There is no development in a country where every criticism in the media is against its government. I… Read more »
Simple and direct. No politics involved. Mr President are you man enough to say from now on ward as a poor nation we can not afford the following so no more this and that. Things like seminars, government ministers and senior employees using more than one vehicle reviewing fuel allocation to all government vehicle reviewing payment of allowances. MPs during sitting of parliament and so many other ways that government employees came up with to defraud government and reward mediocrity