“The world’s poorest country,” wrote The Independent of the UK earlier last week, “is to make the world’s most expensive bonfire.” The insinuation may have been irreverent but the message was poignant. Malawi was scheduled to burn four metric tonnes of ivory worth over US $7 million. The stockpile was made from accumulated contraband seized […]
“F-E-A-R has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ Or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours” –Zig Ziglar Allan Ntata is a street-smart guy – suave, sharp, creative, everything that makes a guy ‘a man about town’. The guy dabbled into film-making the other year but his real creativity came to the fore when […]
“If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself” -W. Somerset Maugham Does anyone out there really believe Prof. Peter Arthur Mutharika was a billionaire in any currency before he became His Excellency the President of the Republic of Malawi? Unless, of course, he or his aides […]
It is a fact that the Malawi Savings Bank (MSB) has fallen on hard times. It is failing to meet the minimum liquidity requirements as per Basel III (or the Third Basel Accord) specifications. Without seeking to bother you with monetary-speak, Basel III isa global, voluntary regulatory framework on bank capital adequacy, stress testing and […]
“I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion; The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other” -Napoleon Bonaparte If I were President Peter Mutharika I would not have allowed myself to be reduced to a cartoon to commemorate a misadventure that should never have happened. Indeed […]
Ecklen Kudontoni is everything that is wrong with the DPP government. The DPP Secretary General believes that by winning the elections this is time for cadres of the ruling party to ‘eat’. By ‘eating’ he means abusing state resources. Kudontoni believes that all government departments must open up for DPP cadres to abuse resources. He […]
“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government” –Edward Abbey Within the short time he has been in office, President Peter Mutharika has exuded frightening levels of inability for due diligence. Look, staff turn over at State House in the eight short months is, to say the least, scary. It […]
Jean Kalirani is an interesting woman. The other day she taught us a strange brand of patriotism when she said we should be looking the other way when people are stealing money from government because hollering against such acts will scare away investors and donors. Actually, Madam Minister, that is reverse patriotism. She came back […]
“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God” -Matthew 22:21 Jesus here is teaching the Pharisees that, while God is the Supreme Being – the de facto ruler of the world, man still has an obligation to respect earthly lawful authority. After all, coins carried Caesar’s effigy and […]
So we got a very expensive loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB), without even having the courtesy of bouncing it with Parliament, to cushion our kwacha? Goodall Gondwe, our purse keeper, was right on the ball when he said we used ‘tricks’ to arrest our wayward kwacha from tumbling south and created a false […]
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second-rate version of someone else” Judy Garland So it is official? We are the poorest of the poor? Really? This, according to the latest World Bank GDP per capita figures. According to the Big Bank, GDP per capita denotes the purchasing power parity (PPP). PPP […]
“Critics are like robots at a Level Crossing; while they are able to stop other road users, they cannot stop the train” -Peter Arthur Mutharika In this analogy President Peter Mutharika takes himself as an unstoppable juggernaut that, like the train, cannot be stopped by robots (critics) because, according to him, he is “focused and […]
This is one of those rare occasions that the Muckraker doffs his hat to the Mutharika administration. From our Civics of old (are they calling it ‘Social Studies’ these days?) we were told ‘Democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people’. Ideally, although unfortunately it does not happen often, a […]
“Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer” -Muhammad Ali If there is one Inspector General of Police who came to Area 30 with pomp and ceremony it was Paul Kanyama. Look, if Peter Mukhito was the ‘best IG ever’ in the books of the departed Big Kahuna, Paul Kanyama would certainly […]
Next Wednesday all roads will lead to – and all eyes will be trained on – the Bingu International Conference Centre as President Peter Mutharika unveils the seminal reforms his administration wants to institute in the civil/public service. Peter strategically put his trusty deputy, Saulos Chilima, to front the reforms. Angoni, coming from the results-oriented […]
The original Radio RSA Chichewa Service had Tony Machilika, Mike Mlongoti, Joe Dawe and Charles Ndau. They used to come on air at 7 CET. These guys were massive. During the dawn of multiparty democracy Radio RSA was a ‘must listen’. Joe Dawe was the most serious of the quartet. All of them were unique […]
“We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit” -Aristotle Sometimes avoidable blunders Capital Hill and State House are making almost on a daily basis make one think someone is out on a mission to embarrass my good president. Just look at the parastatal boards fiasco. Someone must have […]
Floods and their aftermath have been the domineering subject during the past month. But what are we planning to do beyond the floods? President Peter Mutharika and his trusty deputy, Saulos Chilima, have done all they could to rise above the floods and galvanise the nation and the international community to come to the rescue […]