President Professor Peter Mutharika in State of the National Address which was full of details and showed a very good grasp of all aspects of the issues Malawians face, enganged Malawians on how he started working on solutions while campaigning for the Presidency and once in office how he plans to implement the solutions.
President Mutharika reminded us that Malawi remains one of the world’s poorest, ranking 170th out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI 2013), a position it has been stuck on since 2010.
As you all know, the HDI measures long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development, namely: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living. Between 1980 and 2013, Malawi’s annual HDI increase averaged about 1.4 percent, against an average annual population increase of 2.2%. This suggests that human development has been too slow.
The President also reminded Malawians how ‘Cashgate’ and bloated government saddled his government with empty coffers and unpaid debts.
The President said after assessing the policies and practices of the previous Governments, They decided to retain the Automatic Fuel Pricing mechanism, the flexible exchange rate regime, the return of foreign exchange bureaus, and other monetary policy measures meant to entrench the role of markets in achieving sustainable economic growth.
The President stated chief executive officers of public institutions, principal secretaries and other senior public officers have been told to stop attending political events that do not affect their charge. Instead to spend more time working and providing needed services to Malawians.
On the economy the president said he was addressing the declining Kwacha and expected it to start stabilizing soon and he expected a reasonable growth in the economy. He said in the past three months our currency has lost close to a quarter of its value in relation to the US dollar, and the impact shows strongly through inflation arising to the associated rising costs of our imports. This inflation has exerted pressure on interest rates, hence lowered private investment and employment. Much as seasonality explains part of the kwacha depreciation, a significant part of it is attributable to speculation.
But I have better news: the Kwacha has since stabilized. I am hopeful that the domestic currency may even appreciate soon, because we are doing everything possible to get the economy on the right track. Government has put in place policies that will translate into increased exports in order to increase foreign exchange earnings which are needed to defend the domestic currency.
My fellow Malawians, despite the aforesaid challenges facing our economy, the financial system has stabilized and developments are visible in the financial institutions and the capital markets.
Mutharika said government is determined to make Blantyre Water Board (BWB) to be able to supply sufficient water to all residents.
The statement in part read, “The BWB infrastructure is aged and has out-lived its designed capacity which has meant for a population of 500,000 residents up to the year 1999 and today BWB has over 1 million.
“Further due to inadequate rains in the year 2012/13, the Mudi Dam which produces 10 percent of the board’s water production dried up by October 2014.”
It adds that electricity which costs BWB about K279 million per month to pump water from Nkula, 40 kms away from the city has been another challenge.
The President said, ” We embarked on a total rehabilitation of the BWB production facilities and replacement of pumps at Walkers Ferry and Chileka pumping stations and by March 2015, the BWB will be able to meet all the demand of 96, 000 cubic meters per day up from the current 74, 000 cubic meters production capacity,”
He said in additional government will construct a water supply system from Mulanje Mountain at the cost of about US$ 12 million to provide an extra 8,000 cubic meters of water per day to Blantyre and surrounding areas.
On Salary strikes and other controversies is that those who had privileged salary scales want to continue to earn more than their mainstream Civil Service colleagues. In short they demand equal salary increments that would maintain their superiority over the mainstream Civil Service. To do this, of course means, that we would have to find extra money from somewhere. There is just no money for us to increase their salary scales. Recently the IMF programme that we have signed is premised on expenditure and therefore wage containment.
The President blamed outside agitators and people within who are being unreasonable in their demands when his government is got a plan in place that would allow for fair salaries for all government workers other than a selected few. The Plan also would make sure Cashgate does not happen again.
The President in his full statement showed he has a grasp of the issues affecting the country and given time he has the wherewithal to implement the solutions.
