By Martha Ziya
Let’s be honest as a country: democracy has taken Malawi backward.
Under Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Malawi was poor but it had FOUNDATIONS. Today we have politics, but no system. We have freedom of speech, but no food, no jobs, no transport.
40 years ago, this country worked:
- AIR MALAWI
We had our own airline. Air Malawi was flying from Lilongwe to London TWICE A WEEK. From Lilongwe to Johannesburg, Harare, Lusaka, Nairobi. Today? We liquidated it in 2013. We are now tenants in Malawian Airlines with Ethiopians owning 49%. A country without a flag carrier is not a country. - UNITED TRANSPORT MALAWI / STAGECOACH / SHIRE BUS LINES
We had intercity buses that kept time. We had double-decker buses moving people around Lilongwe City and Blantyre City for 20 tambala. A student could move. A worker could move. Today? Minibuses killing people every day, no timetable, no city transport system. - MALAWI RAILWAYS
Kamuzu nationalized Malawi Railways in 1965. Trains moved tobacco, maize, fuel from Nacala to Lilongwe. Today the railway is dead. We now put everything on the road and call it development. - ADMARC
Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation was created in 1971. It had 1,300 seasonal markets, 217 unit markets, storage for 468,000 metric tonnes. A farmer in Chitipa knew where to sell his maize. Today ADMARC closed all operations in July 2025, bankrupt, 349 markets shut, 4,000 workers on leave, vehicles seized by courts. We destroyed our own food security. - DAVID WHITEHEAD & SONS
The biggest textile factory in Southern Africa. It clothed Malawi, employed thousands in Blantyre. Closed. - MALAWI DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (MDC), PRESS CORPORATION, PRESS PRODUCE, AUCTION HOLDINGS
These were the engines that built industry when we had no private capital. Today they are either dead, sold for nothing, or political cash cows. - MALAWI HOUSING CORPORATION, MALAWI BOOK SERVICE, MALAWI YOUNG PIONEERS, MALAWI SHIPPING COMPANY, MANICA
All gone. All killed.
Kamuzu said: “Malawi must develop.” He built schools, hospitals, roads, and companies to employ us. What did multiparty build? We killed every company and replaced it with NGOs and handouts.
How can we say we are developing when in 1978 a Malawian could board Air Malawi to London, board a double-decker bus in Capital City, buy cloth made in Blantyre, and sell his maize at ADMARC – but in 2026 he cannot do any of that?
We did not privatize – we vandalized.
Until we rebuild institutions, not just talk about democracy, Malawi will keep going backward.
We were better organized as a poor one-party state than we are today as a “rich” democracy.
Ndife Kadziko Komvetsa Chisoni,Timawombera Mmanja Mbava.
About the author: She is a retired teacher
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