With twists and turns at every nook and corner in the ongoing maize-gate enquiry, parliamentary probe and the dubious Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) foray into the scandal; the temptation to forget other issues while concentrating on the bulldozer’s shenanigans is overwhelming.
Shocking amidst this, is the deafening silence from both the President-in-waiting Right Honorable Dr. Lazarus Chakwera MP and the citizen number two,Veep Right Honorable Dr. Saulos Chilima.
Are they playing a wait and see game, or their usual head-deep-in-sand trajectory?
You decide.
I won’t jump to conclusions, so I will revisit these gentlemen’s muteness when the various inquiries have run their course.
So, letting sleeping dogs lie, I will shelve maize-gate and delve into other burning developments, stagnations and retrogressions.
The Daily Times reported that traders contracted to supply the Farm Inputs Subsidy Program (FISP) fertilizer have described the 2016/17 program as ‘the most delayed and chaotic’, with all fingers pointing at government for ‘failing to implement the program within the ideal period’.
The Desk Officer for Fertilizer Association of Malawi (FAM), Mwaiwa Chigaru, schooled government saying:
“to ensure that farmers are efficient in production and to enable good planning, an optimum time frame is vital. The ideal window for Fisp will thus have to be September 15 to December 15and the following need to be in completed early: beneficiary list, contracts and coupon distribution.”
He continued; “Ideally, farmers should have access to coupons prior to the dates. For the 2016/17 season, this was not achieved by a long margin,” adding that coupons arrived on November 28 2016 whereas markets opened to suppliers on December 22 2016.
Now, Blues’ Orators, if this doesn’t worry you; it’s because you have become numb in the face of so many man-made disasters.
Look at things this way: were this a pilot phase of the farm inputs program, I would’ve been begging you to chalk everything to teething problems.
If these guys had never been in government before, I would’ve been pleading with you to forgive them, for they know not that their incompetence is only a step away from mass homicide.
However, the truth is: fooling around with this program which, as imperfect and as corruption-ridden it is, is all that poorest have, is criminal and downright inhuman.
Half a loaf, they say is better than none.
Therefore, toying around with that half loaf in the face of people who have yet to recover from a lingering hunger, is the unkindest thing anyone can do.
But here we are; delivery of inputs is not yet complete.
Now, who fertilizes crops end of February?
By the way, you want to know why this program has now taken the back seat?
The answer takes us right back to the very maize saga I wanted to shun today.
Officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, ADMARC and practically everyone connected were busy salivating, counting their chickens before the eggs hatched in what would have been a K10 billion heist now foiled by the leader of opposition UPP in Zambia, Saviour Chishimba.
Having banked on hitting the jackpot through maize-gate, the loot they get annually from FISP was more or less petty cash.
Yes, petty cash are the spoils they loot from FISP when compared to the devilish cross-border maize-gate which thanks to a Saviour Chishimba – pun intended – has now turned into a nightmare for its engineers, reminiscent of the best-laid plans of mice and men.
Those of you who retained a fleeting interest in FISP will have read that Admarc – the heartbeat of maize-gate and one of the two major parastatals involved in the implementation of FISP, had not, as of last week, supplied fertilizer.
As to why, your guess is as good as mine.
So, even if the good Lord above blesses us with good rains this year, the harvest won’t be as much as would have been, if coupons and farm inputs had reached farmers in time for the first rains.
The result?
Despite adamantly allocating resources in the 2016/7 budget for FISP, we will be blackmailed into borrowing again, to buy maize to feed starving Malawians.
And by the time we need to borrow, we will not have finished repaying the PTA loan plus interest whose proceeds were intended for the pockets of the corrupt leaders we love to praise.
With this vicious cycle Blues’ Orators, we shouldn’t even sit at any table where serious countries discuss strategies, ways and means of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
With this vicious cycle Blues’ Orators, much as I am thrilled with the enthusiasm of the new British High Commissioner to Malawi, Holly Tett; who has said her first assignment is to help us achieve economic independence, I will be watching her closely to see how long that enthusiasm lasts.
Don’t get me wrong Blues’ Orators, I do not want to poison the well for Madam Holy Tett, it is just that you and I know Malawi and our leaders too well.
We know that our poverty is not because they don’t know how to lift Malawi to its feet in terms of providing all the basic necessities to the citizenry, nope.
Their living in obscene affluence means that they know what human dignity entails and what to do, but choose to do it only for themselves.
It is about wanting to have all the good things, all the wealth and prestige that it brings, at our expense.
Hence, the more we suffer, the more their egos swell and the more they demand applause!
So, welcome Your Excellency Madame Holly Tett to Malawi -home of the greedy, the abode of leaders who construct crises after crises with the sole intention of attracting donor sympathy so that when the donors get busy resolving the man-made crises, they can steal and loot our hard paid taxes in peace.
It never ends, does it?
