After last week’s discourse re: “Indecisiveness as the hallmark of President Lazarus Chakwera’s leadership this far”, it was a pleasant surprise for many to see Chakwera in action. Whether the action was just or unjust, legally tenable or untenable or whatever, Chakwera took action. As I had argued last week, it is only by trying […]
“Indecision and delays are the parents of failure.”- George Canning, British premier, Apr-Aug 1827 I recently stumbled on a fascinating article titled the Anatomy of Military Incompetence. Its thrust is that failure to make any decision is almost as bad as making a poor decision. Expressed mathematically, indecision = lousy decision. The author supports this […]
Last Sunday’s Times Television flagship “Hot Current” programme broached the nascent debate over Section 91 of the Republic of Malawi’s Constitution. The Section reads as follows: (1) No person holding the office of President or performing the functions of President may be sued in any civil proceedings, but the office of President shall not be […]
Before I cut to the chase, I hereby reproduce, in their entirety, two letters. From: OPC To: Rt. Hon. Nyirenda, Chief Justice-MSCA Date: 5 June 2020 Dear Rt. Honourable Justice Nyirenda, LEAVE PENDING RETIREMENT I write in respect of the above matter, My Lord, and wish to advise that according to employment records kept by […]
As with all Valentine Days, this year’s day was not uneventful. Covid-19 notwithstanding, a lot happened. For fear of opening a Pandora’s Box, I will leave this at that and redirect our discourse elsewhere. On Valentine Day, President Lazarus Chakwera gifted us a bouquet of roses in the form of his first serious statement of […]
“What we continue to lack is transformational leadership that is not defined by region, tribe or age. Leadership is not measured by education. We have a lot of educated fools in the country’s political leadership. We need to know who we are, where we are and where we want to be. Not mediocrity and politics […]
Lest I be ranked with Nero who was busy fiddling when Rome was burning, I will go straight to the point.To set the context, a factual timeline is necessary: 31 Dec 2019: China reported the emergence of a new virus. 20 Jan 2020: WHO declared Covid19 a global pandemic. 20 Mar 2020: A State of […]
As such, along with our focus on the future we want must be some reflection on what assets we can build on presently and what sins from our past we must avoid.” – President Lazarus Chakwera, at the launch of Malawi Vision 2063, Kamuzu Palace, 19 January 2021. A man was told that a plane […]
“Then I witnessed the torture of Sisyphus, as he wrestled with a huge rock with both hands. Bracing himself and thrusting with hands and feet, he pushed the boulder uphill to the top. But just when he was about to topple it over the crest, its sheer weight turned it back, and he had to […]
The Ministry of Education is under attack. The issue? The selection of the 2019/20 PSLCE candidates to national secondary schools whose allocation of students to Malawi’s 24 national secondary schools is as below: Northern Education Division 182 students, Central East 250 students, Central West 679 students, South East 230 students, South West 230 students, and […]
There was this pious dude. Never missed a Church service. Tithed religiously. The Bible was his pillow and was well regarded.One day he took time off to meditate, fast and praise the Lord. Avoiding distractions, he chose a nearby mountain for his venue. On his way, he met women coming from a firewood fetching excursion. […]
Once upon a time, there was a village in a valley straddling a river called Lawi. Its people earned their livelihoods by subsistence farming; cultivating various crops by the river. One day, as they were tending their fields, they noticed a baby floating downstream. One brave villager rushed into the waters, grabbed the baby and […]
A “Gordian knot” is a conundrum denoting a complex or unsolvable problem. The term’s origin is traced to Alexander the Great who, in 333 B.C., marched into the Phrygian capital of Gordium in modern-day Turkey. Upon arrival, history says he encountered an ancient wagon, its yoke tied with “several knots all so tightly entangled that […]
For every Malawian, the year 2020 started with unprecedented suspense arising from waiting for the then-pending judgement by the Constitutional Court which was at that time deliberating on the controversial May 2019 Presidential Elections Case. The judgement came, and the parties at the wrong end of it ill-advisedly appealed. By the time the Justices of […]
President Lazarus Chakwera and Vice President Saulos Chilima were at Capital Hill on Friday, leading this month’s environmental clean-up activity. This is the president’s second clean-up excursion since Cabinet resolved that the campaign be institutionalised and be conducted monthly, every second Friday. Now, you all know that I have been very tough on this president. […]
Social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, were hot this past week. The controversy was about Malawi’s new well-wisher, Mr Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. Tony Blair as he is better known, served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. It was revealed […]
Monday 23 November 2020 will be remembered as the day that President Lazarus Chakwera experienced his presidential come-to-Jesus moment. Speaking at Kamuzu Palace when chairing the signing ceremony of Public Service Reform Performance Contracts with government ministries, local councils, institutions and parastatals; Chakwera bemoaned the public service’s failure to repent, change and begin earning the […]
Our Malawi society can be categorized in several ways. We could break it into urban and rural people, the educated and the uneducated, the young and the old, etc. These are simplistic categorizations because in between each two are shades of grey deepened by overlaps. There are also some ‘black holes’ where regardless of the […]