Malawi begs Japan for more aid: Finance Minister says K1.3bn grant will not be ‘Cashgated’
Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and DevelopmentGoodall Gondwehas asked Japanese Government to consider increasing financial assistance to Malawi on Economic and Social Development Programme.
Speaking during the signing ceremony of 200 million Japanese Yen (KI.3 billion) Grant Aid on Wednesday in Lilongwe, he observed that Japan’s financial assistance to Malawi has since been reduced.
“Japan used to give us more money in the past, but now it has been reduced,” Gondwe noted.
The request comes amid Japan’s dwindling financial assistance to Malawi through the said window over the years since 1988 when the country started benefiting from the grants.
The resources have been utilised to assist a wide range of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to acquire, through loans, various operating or capital goods, plant or equipment purchased from abroad.
The Minister attributed reduction of the financial assistance to low and non repayment of the loans acquired from the package by some small and medium entrepreneurs in the country.
He explained that the development led to the disappointment of the donor.
Gondwenoted that once the assistance is increased it would enable the country to implement various projects without difficulties and pledged to properly account for the funds and usethe resources in a transparent manner.
“I would like to assure Your Excellency that on our part, we will use the assistance solely on the intended purpose,” he assured.
The Finance Minister appealed to beneficiary companies that still owe the programme money to speed up payments.
“Please note that the new grants to the country will depend very much on how quickly beneficiary companies pay back their loans,” he added.
Japanese Ambassador to Malawi, Kae Yanagisawa said the Grant Aid is intended to compliment the country’s efforts to promote economic and social development and eliminate poverty.
The Ambassador said the grant would be used by Malawi Government to procure goods and equipment to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in enhancing their business operations.
The grant, previously known as Non-Project Grant Aid, has been provided to the country since 1988 and has now totalled US$ 45 million (K33 billion), including the just signed agreement of K1.3 billion.
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A SHITHOLE COUNTRY LEAD BY AN ASSHOLE pRESIDENT
Patriotism gets out of me whenever I hear stories of this calibar. It really pisses me off to see my country which has all it takes to do better but fails to do so and eventually relying on begging. It has taken ages since we obtained our independence but I still see nothing to point my fingers at as a development. What the hell we think we are doing if I may ask. At times, the challenges we face forces me to think that its good to call the white men to govern us once more since we have literally failed to govern ourselves. It sucks Bwanji!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
up to the point of begging typical of shithole nations
pay the people well. its just a simple arithmetic of income and expenditure versus real life costs. will not cashgate but siphone
Why do Malawians like to demean themselves? Why call something that happens in many countries, Begging? and how did you come to that conclusion?
The problem with life is, if the tell yourself enough time that you are not as good as the next person, you become just that.
As long as there is continual thirst for illicit enrichment among senior public officers who happen to be controlling officers and that accounting personnel in government institutions continue to strategise how to steal both public and donor funds, trust from donors will continue to evaporate. Look now. Small and medium entrepreneurs in the country are not repaying loans acquired from donor package, and this has spurred Japan to reduce aid assistance because of the failure to recoup loans.
It is time that controlling officers and accounting personnel show off their professional skills in so far as transparency and accountability is concerned. Heuristic framework should help policy makers to think more creatively about methods to deal with corrupt individuals who are being treated with kid gloves. Unless that is done, then it would be an exercise in vain to win the trust of donors who are slowly moving out while withholding aid package.
I thought the president said the economy does not require us to beg from donors anymore? Eish.
THE MONEY IS ALREADY CASH GATED.
May i know who is going to manage these funds?Is Medef of Ministry of Finance?
we are truly a shithole, shithouse country, we can,t refute that!!!!
Every Patriot should read this article.
This makes an interesting reading:
This article was penned by Field Ruwe. He is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History.?
“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”
Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.
“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.
I told him mine with a precautious smile.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“Zambia.”
“Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”
“Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.”
“But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”
My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.
“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”
“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.
“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the Cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”
He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”
Quett Masire’s name popped up.
“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”
At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles.
“Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down.
From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.
“That’s white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”
I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”
He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.”
The smile vanished from my face.
“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?”
“There’s no difference.”
“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”
I gladly nodded.
“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.”
For a moment I was wordless.
“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.”
I was thinking.
He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.”
I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.
“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”
“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.
He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”
I held my breath.
“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”
He looked me in the eye.
“And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”
I was deflated.
“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”
He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”
He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”
At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.
“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”
He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”
Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.
Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.
But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line.
I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out.
“Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here)
Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters. Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior.
A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter. Take a moment and think about our country. Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining….
Use Africa to substitute Zambia/Zambian in the article and it holds true for all African.
[4/15, 11:49] +27 83 381 9206: Field Ruwe ‘s document is so true
It suits SA 100%
Especially the politicians that dont promote intellectual actualization of what they have acquired
There is a renewed attack on intellectuals
When politicians are faced with challenges their soft target is intellectuals
How much is spent on promoting research from basic degree or diploma level
The reliance on skills from outside the country promote dependence
Does it mean we could not for example develop our own Primary health care theoretic base and establish a health care delivery system that talks to our needs and challenges using available skills and
Make continuing education an attraction to ensure academic excellence
To me this is a wake up call
This is a well written comment
Thanks Clive.
I lifted that message from my networks.
I felt the message is quite appropriate to our situation. I have observed Malawian intellectuals for years, who I feel they are into earning qualifications just to elevate their status in beer drinking and other meeting places.
No PhD holder has applied his educational skills to the betterment of the Malawian society probably with the exception of Dr. Matthews Chikaonda who under his tenure at the ministry of finance managed to get the kwacha to appreciate.
Malawi kwacha has gained since his departure (prove me wrong)!
CORRECTION!
Thanks Clive.
I lifted that message from my networks.
I felt the message is quite appropriate to our situation. I have observed Malawian intellectuals for years, who I feel they are into earning qualifications just to elevate their status in beer drinking and other meeting places.
No PhD holder has applied his educational skills to the betterment of the Malawian society probably with the exception of Dr. Matthews Chikaonda who under his tenure at the ministry of finance managed to get the kwacha to appreciate.
Malawi kwacha has gained since his departure (prove me wrong)!
CORRECTION :
Thanks Clive.
I lifted that message from my networks.
I felt the message is quite appropriate to our situation. I have observed Malawian intellectuals for years, who I feel they are into earning qualifications just to elevate their status in beer drinking and other meeting places.
No PhD holder has applied his educational skills to the betterment of the Malawian society probably with the exception of Dr. Matthews Chikaonda who under his tenure at the ministry of finance managed to get the kwacha to appreciate.
Malawi kwacha hasn’t gained since his departure (prove me wrong)!
Kwacha indeed! We need to wake up. Well said patriot
Why is the President still keeping this Man?
Gawanani makobilowo? Malawi is still one of the poorest countries despite the Aid.
Shame on our leaders.
Ziko lochitisa manyazi ili mayiko onse Asiye kutithandiza ife ndife shitholes as tramp said these are useless readers DPP And MCP useless parties and useless readers only new party can change Malawian not these old thirds.
Chichewa please kuti mwina tingamve zomwe mukufuna kunena
Generally, MCP should be taken out as a useless party. It rescued Nyasas from the bondage of colonialism. It went about encouraging the spirit of hard work and resilience. It left very good economic structures before being expelled from government in May 1994. But for unknown reasons, parties that emerged after it could not sustain the good economic structures. They destroyed them to meet their own objectives and to punished perceived foes. In doing so, they punished everybody. Here we are now …Read the post by Maula Ikukodola Wacashgate.
By tomorrow, believe me, that money will be shared among rotten ministers, including him(Goodall) and APM. These people are a bunch of thieves!!!!! Malawians should wake up!
Oh I bet their mouths are watering over a new batch of aid money. So how should we split this one mates? And all the well intending Malawians don’t bother with the Malawian political environment, rather just remain an ordinary citizen and in peace. Smh.
Trump akakupangani tramp mudzidandaula
Kuchita kulilira thandizo, hehehe… Kuyambira 1988 zagwira ntchito?
Kukhalira kuba basi.
Sad Sad Sad Nation, I dont like begging makes it worse for a country.