Mutharika says Malawi has made a choice to walk from poverty to prosperity: ‘China’s history great lesson to Africa’
President Peter Mutharika has said developing economies have a lot to learn from the Chinese economy taking into consideration the fact that not long ago China was a developing country on the same economic scale to countries such as Malawi.
Mutharika was speaking at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) after he was confererred an honorary professorship for economic prudence.
‘‘Five decades ago, Malawi was ahead of China on per capita income. China was then one of the poorest countries in the world. Today, China is one of the developed countries in the world, although you insist on being modest to say you are only a developing country. China has outpaced us in economy and improvement of the quality of life of her people,’’ said Mutharika.
Mutharika said the achievement China has registered is worth emulating.
‘‘China’s [Economic] history is a great lesson to Africa. It is an inspiring story that tells us that it is possible for an Africa country to move from poverty to prosperity.’’ Mutharika emphasised.
President Mutharika said African countries need to do an honest self-evaluation to understand why people of the continent are poor while the continent is the richest in resources.
‘‘Our poverty is a result of the choices we made over the last few decades,’’ Mutharika added.
Mutharika said Malawi has made a choice to walk from poverty to prosperity.
“It is not an easy walk. But we have chosen to walk that path,” he said.
Continued Mutharika: “We have chosen to believe that we can achieve greatness out of the little we have. We have chosen to begin our journey with what we have as a country. The last four years I have led my country have been a great lesson to us. We have learnt that we can make a great country out of a vast crisis. And there are times when great nations are forged out of crises.”
Mutharika said “every crisis is an opportunity to make a difference”, saying for Malawi, the years of national crises taught the country to be resilient, to work hard and depend on the little it has.
“I came to lead Malawi in May 2014. The country was on the brink of economic collapse. We had just suffered the worst plunder of public funds ever known in modern history. This national plunder was called Cashgate. This was a state-sanctioned scheme by the [Joyce Banda] administration which I took over from,” said Mutharika.
Mutharika said donors withdrew support for national budget but pointed out that with his economic prudence and reforms many cooperating parthner have not returned with budgetary support.
“We inherited a deficit that almost equalled our national budget at the time. We were technically bankrupt. Everyone thought the country was going to collapse. Most people lost hope – and you could see it in their eyes.
“We began with a man-made economic disaster. Then the natural disasters followed.”
He said when Malawi economic situation was tough, when suffering was real, and pain felt; “ we chose to be a resilient nation. We chose determination and not fear.”
The Malawi leader said when donors stopped budgetary aid, his administration did not choose to go begging.
“We chose to cut spending and enforce austerity measures to save the little we had. We recovered our economy out of a crisis and without donor budget support. All our macroeconomic indicators speak of a rising economy of Africa,” he pointed out.
Mutharika confidently pledged to take the people from poverty to prosperity: “ China made it. Israeli made it in the desert. Many more have done it. We believe we can do it! And we will do it!”
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China has one document they made as a road map just like our shelved vision 2020 & the way they implement it is parties campaign the best possible way of implementing each goal at a shortest time. But here we erase or abandone a project the predecessor started ndiye nkutukuka ndi Khwidzi zake muli nazozi ma President inu? Just continue piling Professorships without visible outputs.
Fine words Mr President, but they come much too late. Your time is nearly up. You deceive yourself but not the people of Malawi. The dark sunglasses you always seem to wear when you are out and about prevent you from seeing the abject poverty of your people. Even those of your people who live in Lilongwe and Blantyre cannot see because of the blackouts. There are none so ignorant as those who refuse to see. Malawi has not progressed one little bit during your stewardship of the Presidency and your fine words cannot change reality. The best you can… Read more »
Congratulations APM for the great achievements you have made over a short period of time……….there might be some flaws interms of governance but you deserve a second term to give you a chance so that you can finish what you started..
Owoo cashgate lero ndi cashloot or….aPumbwa ? economy yakwera kwa anthu ochepa wokha the masses are suffering mmidzi mu mbeu zomwe akolola sanagulitse pamitengo yogwira mtima apa ndiye nkumanama apa za zii tiona ndi impunity mukupangayi ipitilire beyond 2019!!
An exercise in self aggrandisement
Muthalika,why can’t you be ashamed of uttering bloody-nonsensecal matters.When has Malawi started to walk from poverty to prosperity? As a Professor,can’t you distinguish between PROSPERITY AND POVERTY?.Malawi is least developed country in Africa over-passed even by Rwanda which in 1994,was completely brought down in bloody conflict with her neighbour Burundi.Your friends Chinese do not care about African countries,which are its economic victims.In West Africa,China has drastically destroyed the countries’ economic resources like wild life,minerals,vital trees and many others.Muthalika seems to lack economic comprehension of his own country.He does not know the fact that China is in Africa,to swallow our resources… Read more »
True that
Great speech and self analysis. Malawi has no excuse ‘ll as it has all the ingredients to become one of the greatest and examplary nation in the continent. This isn’t the time to fool ourselves that the country is developed……We are far far behind out peers and we need to admit it Mr president. There’s work to be done and let’s just focus on rallying the people of Malawi to do their bit. Energise each one of us towards a common vision and goals and you’ll be surprised; people of Malawi will be with you. Deal ruthlessly with corruption, cronyism,… Read more »
So you mean the Chinese can see economic prudence but Malawians can’t see. I think Malawi is a cursed state chifukwa anthufe tachuluka nsanje kwambiri. See now, the Chinese are seeing koma a Malawi are not kikikikiki. I think this is sad.
@ heavy duty
Malawians know better than the Chinese regarding their poverty because they live and feel it . The Chinese can’t tell us that we have developed because we know our situation better than they do. It’s this kind of mediocrity and self praise that keep us n this sorry state while our neighbors have far much ahead of us. Talking about economic prudence I dont know if you understand what this concept means and entails in the first.
When?
Rhetoric, the countries you have mentioned have different mind set and subscribe to different ideologies. Malawi is good at talking. When leaders say we have chosen to walk away from poverty they are talking about themselves not the rest of us.