BY JACK BANDA
Let us say this again:
The only plausible and practicable explanation for the drainage of forex in Malawi this time around is that it has been used up by Chakwera. He has taken it all.
It is not rocket science here. Malawi could have managed to import fuel, buy fertiliser, service debt, import medicine, import Kaunjika etc without putting the forex levels into the negative if it was not for Chakwera to take it all for himself.
APM worked with far more challenging natural and political circumstances than we have now but he was prudent and loving of our people. He minimised his travel and kept his family away from public money. Even though there were no donors, we always had forex enough to cover us for more than four months. Everything apart from politics was running smoothly.
It is sad looking at the nature of the damage our people are going through under Chakwera’s leadership. It is much more than poverty. It is spiritual. Really Really sad.
Chakwera came on a self aggrandizement mission. The person in him is greedy and conceited. The noise he has gone about making that he is a servant-leader is hard to prove. In the early days of his leadership, people cautioned him on his excessive and sheer unnecessary appetite on travels because they knew that maintaining such a tempo would deplete the already meagre and hard-earned government coffers.
The sole culprit who carelessly embezzled, used and staffed his accounts with public money is no other than Chakwera. He chose to fly on hired jets, took with him the whole village on unexplained global tours. Today the country is grappling in broad daylight like we are in the dark in search of almost all the services which were plentiful a couple of months ago. Just to take you readers backwards a bit; during their campaign trips all-over the country, his colleague Chilima kept on assuring their supporters that there was too much money in government. If that was the case, why can’t he direct RBM or their Finance Minister to come to the rescue of Malawians?
Based on the situation the country is in, Chakwera needs to give an account of where the money worth 3 to 6 months forex cover he inherited has been spent on. He needs to justify his spending otherwise the next person who takes over might do the same and in so doing the country will continue languishing in poverty because of cheap crooks who take advantage of weak laws and the corrupt justice system.
The most disheartening thing is that the tax payers are unable to access medical services and whenever they try to visit a hospital they are told there are no drugs, they end up dying and after expiring they are left to look for own means to transport the dead body to their homes since all ambulances are grounded due to shortage of fuel and others are beyond repair. Chakwera has deliberately taken the state where it is now because he has nothing to do with the plight and welfare of the same people who voted him into office and yet he calls himself “a servant leader”, my foot. In simple words – this pastor is a murderer.