Dr. Daniel Dube
There is no more money to borrow, no parastatals generating money, no controls for the flight of forex and no development projects that can generate money, no control on waste and abuse so, let’s sell anything that has potential…
If we had a serious opposition in parliament, or if we have an independent Justice Department or National Public advocate, this whole Bridgin affair would be considered as illegal. We have the LL- Salima project, the recent “MWK750M” fertilizer deal and the NOCMA deals that are following the same pattern of bypassing the government regulatory processes. All this is to facilitate side dealings. We even have a bill somewhere that was designed to legalize the kind of dealing we are seeing in the Bridgingate.
The Bridgin Affair speaks of public trickery and is following the same pattern that this government has undertaken. We were treated like stupid people and told that we had a $7B Billion dollar grant. This turned out not to be the case. It appears that we have packaged all potentially bankable projects and given them to a single entity that has NO MONEY, NO TRACK record except for promises to small remote and very poor nations. De facto, they will take the presidential endorsement and sell the projects to different international private companies at a profit to themselves and probably side equity deals to middlemen in Malawi.
We have a legal process by which investors come into our country and on how they are vetted and given solicited or unsolicited contracts. Why and how is an entity that has not been solicited being given a blanket permission to take so many lucrative development projects? For such a large amount of national wealth being given away, why is this not something that parliament should be debating? Why is there not a political attempt to present the proposal to the Malawian public? Why was such a big proposal presented as a surprise and hastily done? There are so many questions that the government has to answer. This is economic mismanagement.
Most Malawians do not have the knowledge on the economics of this deal. As much as we need electricity, four electricity power plants will each generate revenues to the tune of 1/2 to 1 billion dollars per annum. In forty years, Malawi will pay no less than $40 Billion dollars. A first class University taking 5-30,000 students (and we have a need greater than that could generate anything between $USD 10-100 Million USD per annum multiply that by 20 years.
The $7 Billion dollar figure is not an arbitrary figure it is a calculation of the value of our potential ( lack of development) today. These people are seeing into the future. We are seeing what will benefit us today. This is how a country signs itself into perpetual poverty.
This is a blatant disregard of government procedures and lack of patriotism. When we elect a president, we cede unbelievable amount of power. That presidential signature to the Bridgin Foundation is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. We are selling the future of our children. Words such as “the money will remain in Malawi” are disingenuous to put it mildly.
My fellow Malawians, there is no shortcut to development; reform the civil service, curb corruption, control waste and develop our economic potential. Our present economic problems are opportunities for our poor and young. Let us not sell our country. We are seeing a dangerous pattern that threatens the integrity of our country.
