The demonstrations orchestrated by Billy Mayaya last Thursday were a flop as they were poorly attended. While the reasons for the demos were to show the price gauging from TNM and Airtel on Malawi mobile customers, it appears Malawians are worn out from many demonstrations that appear to bear no fruit.
In spite of the poor showing last Thursday, some civil society organizations’ (CSOs) leaders have organized yet another demonstration to demand action from President Peter Mutharika’s administration on what they call delayed justice on abuse of public funds.
The protests, to be held in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu, have been slated for this coming Tuesday.
Human rights lawyer Justin Dzonzi has warned activists against the culture of continuous demonstrations, saying the significance of the whole exercise may be diluted.
Billy Mayaya was representing concerned Malawians who presented a petition to government and the country’s two mobile phone operators against exorbitant rates and poor telecommunication services.
However the activity was poorly attended with law enforcers outnumbering the protesters. It must be frustrating to people like Billy Mayaya and John Kapito when Malawians fail at their civil responsibilities. This was not against government per se but to highlight corporation practices that are taking advantage of their customers. In the last two years TNM and Airtel have declared profits beyond belief.
If you are keeping count, this will be the fourth time this year for Malawi civil Society to have held protests, after doing so in January, May and last this last Thursday on different issues.
One of the lead organizers of the July 7 protests, Billy Mayaya, said in an interview they want comprehensive action from Mutharika in form of forensic audit of all government ministries, departments and district councils as they believe current efforts are not enough.
“We want to target our message to the President whom Malawians voted in to provide both leadership and answers in line with the DPP’s [Democratic Progressive Party] promise of zero-tolerance to corruption. So far, there is scant evidence of this,” said Mayaya.
It is true many Malawians are not satisfied with the state of investigations into the abuse of funds where billions of kwacha are being siphoned and would want to see speedy investigations and prosecution of culprits. Plus audit reports that reveal nothing and even raise many questions.
Mayaya said it was high time President Peter Mutharika showed commitment in “naming and shaming” those involved in the abuse of hundreds of billions of tax-payers’ money.
“The economy is being run into the ground by greedy, heartless and callous politicians who are under the illusion that they are above the law. Malawians are tired of this political theatre, they want to demand answers and justice now,” he said.
But in an interview yesterday, Dzonzi, who is also executive director of Justice Link, observed that repeated protests may lose impact.
Said Dzonzi: “Everything that is repeatedly done loses its impact every new time you do it. So, if there is a culture of continuous demonstrations, the civil society will continuously be losing the impact of the demonstrations because people will begin to get used to it.”
Dzonzi advised the CSOs leaders to develop other levels of engagement so that demonstrations should just be used as escalating or leveraging factors to avoid members of the public and duty bearers forgetting the core issues being presented. Find the suspects.”
The Established Civil Society leadership can also learn from what I call media activists such as Allan Ntata, Wise One from the East (True Identity remains a mystery), Magede Si Wandale and even Lawyer Raphael Kasambara. These Social media activists have taken to sharing their message on the internet. Many of us were made aware of the second cashgate report by the clever and creative ways Wise One from the east used Facebook and twitter with pictures to make sure the message went viral.
Organizing demos require money and man power. Many of our civil societies are funded by westerners who choose which causes to fund. They will only fund demonstrations against government they do not like. When they soured on Bingu WA Mutharika they were willing to pawn money to Malawi CSO’s. Currently that is not the case. The World Bank and its Malawi representative came strongly against those who protested the sale of Malawi savings Bank, so you know they were not going to fund any activity that would highlight the irregularities for such a transaction.
The Malawi Civil Society organizations should take note that social media is cheap. It is a lot easier to master and they are not going to be beholden to any funders if they start taking advantage.
It is time to change tactics to be more effective.
