Of activists, Billy Mayaya and Malawi jet
Malawi is supposed to be a civilized social and political nation committed to a happy view of life. It cannot be looked at differently. The current sense of catastrophe which we are being beaten with by Civil Society activists led by Billy Mayaya and his tribe is supposed to be the monopoly and luxury of immoral aristocratic societies in which the fate of the ordinary citizens is not considered as having a straight and reasonable political importance, being determined by a fixed and supra-political-that is; non-controversial-moral order or fate.
Now; out of content, out of disrespect and out of desperation, Billy Mayaya is leading a pack of unpatriotic men and women hired by foreign enemies of this country to force government to take back the Presidential Jet that was procedurally sold, when we should be moving forward with Dr. Joyce Banda’s transformative agenda. Hence slowly rendering Malawi a flawed democracy, for they are breaching the conventions of our sovereignty as they are forcing the Peoples’ Party Government to reveal its security strategies it has in place for the nation in their quest to get to the so called brass and tacks of this matter.
Most importantly, Billy Mayaya and his colleagues should remember that it was the same civil society that led a crusade against the purchase of the presidential jet by late President Bingu wa Mutharika. Infact, the DPP government never consulted Malawians when they made the decision to buy the jet. The purchase was shrouded in secrecy. It was therefore by consensus that the PP government bowed down to pressure to dispose of the jet since it was revealed it would have been very costly to the country to maintain the jet. Therefore there is no wisdom in faulting the PP governmemt in deciding to sale the jet as this is what Malawians wanted to be done.
Lest Billy Mayaya and his colleague don’t know, matters of National Security should never be discussed carelessly in the public domain otherwise we may equip our enemies with very sensitive information. I smell male sexism and dirty politics in all his rantings. Let sanity prevail in our nation. For if I remember correctly, Her Excellency, Dr. Joyce Banda clearly mentioned at a Press Conference, at Kamuzu Palace, which Billy Mayaya and his colleagues in the Civil Society did not attend and possibly did not watch on television. And that’s undoubtedly why they are displaying pathetic illiteracy of the real facts about the issue. For if they had listened to the President, carefully, they would have known that she had actioned Finance Minister Maxwell Mkwezalamba to hold a Press Conference the next day to explain the breakdown of how the proceeds from the sale of the Presidential Jet were spent.
On the day of the Press Conference which was attended by whoever had a hand in the processing of the deal or had commented on it on the government side, Dr. Maxwell Mkwezalamba lived up to his enviable class of a masterful communicator, by competently giving a blow by blow account of how the proceeds were spent and in the same vein providing answers to a wide array of questions from the ruthless and overzealous Press. The questions ranged from ones based on weird speculation to those founded on outright ignorance and petty lies. But the Finance Minister was very Civil in his responses until the journalists emptied their Pandora’s Box.
True, Mayaya and his friends may find delight in pandering to their foreign benefactors and Rev. Dr. Lazarus Chakwera’s pediatric manipulations, and feel so high. But they should know that it will take a lot more than binging on the instability surrounding the sale of the Presidential Jet to stop Dr. Joyce Banda’s, political fluency and massive appeal to the masses; because according to Dr. Mkwezalamba, the Attorney General was consulted to give his opinion before the deal was sealed and implemented and the Attorney General who was in attendance said nothing to the contrary.
Upon being quizzed by a journalist if he could provide the paper work on how the deal was transacted, Dr. Maxwell Mkwezalamba politely committed to make available the necessary documentation regarding the sale of the Presidential Jet to the Press and if Mayaya and his bin-full of non-believers. If these people were genuinely interested in representing the Malawians they shamelessly claim to represent they could have respectfully approached the Attorney General with their misgivings instead of making irritating noises to the press. They should know that we have children in this country who are looking for role models and mentors instead of uncultured adults who hide behind human rights activism.
I have long been an admirer of genuine philanthropic Malawian patriots like, Her Excellency, Dr. Joyce Banda, but I genuinely feel disappointed when people like Billy Mayaya and company make themselves an integral part of a tired story like the one they are irresponsibly harping on. Particularly when they on one hand claim that they love this country more than some of us and on the other that they are fighting for the rights of the poor, while ignoring the massive looting of government resources in 2012 which amounted to MK92, 000, 000. I seriously wonder where personal decency went.
Suffice to say that Billy Mayaya and his express’ presentations have nothing in them that is of the top class. And I know Dr. Joyce Banda will not spend sleepless nights over this matter because she has a very clean conscience and she has the support of genuine Malawians who appreciate the good work she has done in this country for the past two years. Furthermore this is a very shrewd President with an eye or knack for what practitioners of her genre of politics play with a sense of honesty, and culture; accuracy and balance. It is therefore difficult to understand why Billy Mayaya and company can’t stop clutching on to dry straws that will take them to a cul-de-sac or dead end.
Was it necessary for him and his “tribe” to render them that immaterial? No more than it was necessary for them to try and understand the situation that required government to do its transactions in the way it did with Paramount? I have seen, I believe, and heard about all the unlovely things that people can do to bring someone down, but it is shocking when fellow Malawians recklessly display such acrimony towards their own country. Mayaya and his associates are incomparable in the execution of their misdeeds and that’s why they are incompatible with patriotic Malawians, of Her Excellency, Dr. Joyce Banda’s character.
If I were Billy Mayaya, I would ask one Peter Mutharika to tell Malawians how a Malawian Jet was sold to a Texan Tycoon and how the proceeds were spent. I would make so much noise about exposing those who are trying to snatch a portion of our beloved lake instead of rendering myself irrelevant with useless speculations about the “Liability Called the Presidential Jet”-instead of sticking to threats, accusations and demands that are threadbare in repletion and use.
- Maurice Kachina is a new columnist on Nyasa Times. Views expressed in this article and not necessarily those of Nyasa Times News Group but the author
