It is true that unlike his predecessor Peter Mutharika despite being out of office when Cashgate was uncovered has never enjoyed the support from the West and even from within Africa That Joyce Banda received upon being sworn as Malawi’s first female President. Britain and others had frozen aid worth some 40 per cent of government spending, fuel supplies dried up and food prices soared, leading to popular unrest
Within weeks, gone were the long Petro shortages. South Africa immediately came to the rescue. So did Zimbabwe and the west immediately unfroze all budgetary support restrictions imposed when they wanted to dethrone Bingu WA Mutharika who refused to cower to their demands. They used the excuse that Bingu WA Mutharika had expelled Dyet following his insulting assessment of the Malawi President.
Zambia donated five million liters of fuel to Malawi. The gift was ostensibly for the funeral of the country’s President Bingu wa Mutharika, who died on 5 April 2012 but it was also to help Joyce Banda Manage the Malawi Government. Forgotten from Zambians were the wrangles Bingu had with Sata.
Within the first week of her presidency, Joyce Banda launched a diplomatic offensive to repair Malawi’s international relations. She spoke to Henry Bellingham of the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office. He assured her that a new British envoy will be sent “within the shortest time possible.” She spoke to the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton promised to resume discussions on the $350 million energy grant as soon as possible. Banda announced plans to speak to Baroness Ashton of the European Union’s Foreign Affairs office and the Malawi’s IMF Resident Representative, Ruby Randall. She and Zambian president Michael Sata had also conferred about resuming close working relations.
At least partly to further please donors, Joyce Banda’s administration also refused in June 2012 to host that July’s African Union summit on the grounds that the AU had insisted that Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir be given assurances that Malawi would refuse to serve the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against him; the Cabinet decided that such conditions were unacceptable. President Joyce Banda was named by Forbes an influential publication in the USA as the 40th most powerful woman in the world, the highest African name on the list that year.
It is therefore understandable to read what James Mwangalli a diehard DPP Cadet wrote in support of Mutharika who has failed to Garner the same kind of support from the Donors and some African quarters.
Mwangalli writes the following:
“In a few months from now (May 2017), the current DPP administration will be clocking three years, while running state affairs without direct budgetary support from donors.
The DPP will be clocking 3 years while operating on purely domestic resources. As if that’s not enough a challenge, the country experienced the worst floods ever in history, coupled by drought. Further, the administration started running the country at the time the public resources had just been mercilessly plundered, the worst plunder and looting ever experienced and recorded in this country, christened cashgate!
Despite all this, the country is still on the move, no civil or public servant has gone without pay, roads are being maintained and new ones constructed, hospitals and clinics are being constructed, affordable housing to the less privileged continue to be provided, community colleges are on track, our import cover remains healthy, fuel supply is intact, in fact the list goes on and on.
I sometimes fail to understand when some people especially our clueless opposition make statements insinuating that the Govt has done nothing…do they really think it’s easy to run a Govt with such challenges especially with a volatile economy like ours? If we were realistic enough, we needed to applaud Govt and ingenuity of the leadership for this feat and encourage the administration to soldier on. But being Malawi, where talk is cheap, the opposite prevails”.