Goodall Gondwe was director of the Africa Division of the International Monetary Fund before returning to Malawi to work as a politician. In the period leading up to his election as Member of Parliament, he served as the Chief Economic Advisor to President Bakili Muluzi.

Goodall Gondwe was appointed to the position of Minister of Finance in June 2004 by President Bingu WA Mutharika. He was credited for Malawi’s success during Bingu WA Mutharika’s first term.  His economic development policies, together with Mutharika, helped drastically improve the economic situation in the country. Under his stewardship the rate of inflation fell from 30% in 2005 to 6% by 2008.

More importantly Malawi saw its economy grow by approximately 6 percent. Malawi is a relatively small economy due to its low natural resources compared to its neighbours like Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. In 2008 Gondwe was voted as Africa’s Finance Minister of the Year at the African Banker Awards, held at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington DC, USA.   

Goodall Gondwe comes to the job with a lot of this experience and with many friends in the international financial circles.  However he has failed to turn around the Malawi economy as Minister under Peter Mutharika.

His latest budget presentation to Parliament does not ooze  confidence. Presenting the budget he said the following:

“Mr. Speaker, Sir, I wish to emphasize to the Honourable Members that our economy is still passing through turbulent times. I regret that we have not yet established a stable macroeconomic environment in which low inflation and interest rates prevail, and where the variability of the exchange rate is narrow and predictable.

In such a stable economic environment; investments that generate robust economic activity should be feasible. A stable macroeconomic environment also provides conditions for the attainment of high quality economic growth rates that create the needed high levels of employment and which lead to discernible poverty reduction among both rural and urban populations”.

Many say old age has caught up with him and he needs to pass on the Mantle of the financial stewardship to younger more vibrant Malawi economists