Mutharika deplores ‘sitheka’ mentality, urges mindset change: ‘Malawi we all want is possible’

President Peter Mutharika has asked Malawians to change their mindset from focusing on poverty eradication and focus more on inclusive wealth-creation and self-reliance.

Speaking on Friday in Lilongwe  when he launched the consultation process for the development of the Successor to Vision 2020, whose theme is ‘beyond inclusive envisioning to getting things done,’ Muthatika  said Malawians need to work even harder to move to economic independence where they shall live, without waiting for donations or hand-outs from anyone.

The function which brought together players in various sectors of the economy, is meant to open up discussion that will lead to the production of the country’s medium-term and long-term development plans.

These plans are a successor to the Vision 2020 blueprint which steered the country’s development agenda.

In his speech, President Mutharika said time has come for Malawi to become a middle-income country that is self-sustaining.

“In the next 40 years, we need to focus more on placing the rural areas at the centre of development. As I have said before, for a long time, we have assumed that development must start in the city and spread to the rural communities. For a long time, we have been taking people to development instead of taking development to the people,’’ said Mutharika.

Mutharika disclosed that by far, the Vision 2020 has not done much to benefit the country and it needs to be succeeded by a plan that can address all the challenges that Malawians are facing.

He added that his government is committed to ensuring that development is decentralized by starting from rural communities to the townships.

“I want development to start from rural communities and feed our towns and cities. After all, people in the rural areas make up more than 80 percent of our population. They grow the food which we eat. They generate the money which we use in delivering public services. We should turn to rural areas into centres of development in Malawi,”  he added.

President Mutharika said the start of the consultation process will accord Malawians the opportunity to evaluate the Vision 2020, how it failed and how the nation can do better in the next 40 years.

“Our ultimate goal should be to improve the quality of life of every Malawian – from rural areas to towns and cities. The goal of my government is that every community must be food secure; Every community must have electricity; Every community must have good road network; Every community must have a secondary school; Every community must have a community technical college; Every community must have a hospital; Every community must have potable water supply.”

Mutharika said he wants the youths and women to be heard and their ideas included in the new blueprint.

“ We cannot afford to leave the youth and women behind in the process of deciding our national development for the next 40 years. And let me ask all youths and women in Malawi to take interest in this development plan and contribute their ideas,” advised Mutharika.

However, Mutharika advised Malawians to change their mindset so that they should begin to develop themselves without waiting for government to develop their communities.

“In this nation, we are too often obsessed with what is not working than what we have achieved. We dwell too much on our failures than on our capacities.

“We need to change our mind-set.  We need to move from ‘sizitheka mentality to zitheka mentality’. We need to focus on our capabilities and potential. As I have said before, we need to learn to see every challenge as an opportunity,” said Mutharika.

He pointed out that there is no country in the world that does not have challenges.

“But the difference is that while our friends look at their challenges as opportunities to achieve success, we look at our challenges as reasons to find someone to blame and pull down. In every problem, our focus must be to identify solutions instead of looking out for someone to blame.  That will not take us anywhere,” he said.

During the function, heads of the Legislature, the Judicature and the Civil Society and made affirmations to the success of the new plan which will run up to 2063.

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