My fellow Malawians: I address you tonight with neither rancor nor bitterness, but with only one purpose, to re-assure you that it is possible to have a Better and Prosperous Malawi with the reformed Malawi Congress Party (MCP). 

The great Italian poet – Dante once said, ‘the hottest places in hell must be reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality’. At present, our poor but potentially rich nation is under siege. Fiscal morality is disintegrating at a worrisome rate, going by what we are hearing from news on radios and reading in the papers today.

While we understand that real guilt can only be legally established in court, we should all remember that there can be no smoke without fire.

According to reports, now validated by donor concerns, there is a syndicate driven by greed that is set on self-enrichment at any cost. They will stop at nothing and even our senior civil servants are not safe as they amass ill-gotten wealth at the cost of impoverishing everyone.

Just in line with Dante’s statement above, we in the MCP cannot sit and do nothing while our country is bleeding. We fought for this nation and will continue to do so at any place and time.

We, therefore, join the many well-meaning Malawians and the development partners to urge the government, as a matter of urgency, to:

1. Lift the lid of silence and respond to the allegations flying in the media,
2. Give space to professionals – local or those provided by the development partners, to get the root of this malaise, and
3. Bring all the culprits to book.

As far as the MCP is concerned, this culture of impunity is surmountable. We have drawn up a multi-faceted approach to preventing, detecting and dealing with corruption.

We have the requisite determination and will to eradicate impunity and when we get into government in May 2014; excellence towards good governance with the participation of all will be our mantra. Appointments will be based on merit and not on political inclinations nor family ties.

We will reinforce the governance watchdogs, empowered with the requisite enabling policy and legislation and ensure that they are not only independent, but are seen to be independent. The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) will be fully divorced from executive interference by among other things, ensuring that the ACB director’s position is not an appointed one. (We will explain this in detail later)

It is against this background that I continue to urge all of you wherever applicable:

1. Go and register for next year’s elections;
2. Be an agent of change and voluntarily campaign for  MCP wherever you live; and
3. In May 2014, Vote for MCP councilors, MPs and President.

With the re-born MCP, we can bring back hope and transform Malawi from the current‘winner takes all’ to ‘prosperity for all’.

Sustainable development and change in Malawi is possible but with one condition:  you can no longer be mere spectators; you must be actively engaged and involved. So get involved now and together let us change Malawi.

Thank you all for reading and passing on this message.

God Bless you all and God bless Malawi.

SPEECH DELIVERED BY

MR HARRIS POTANI

 DEPUTY CHIEF ELECTIONS OFFICER (OPERATIONS)  

DURING THE OPENING OF  

ELECTIONS REPORTING TRAINING FOR MEDIA PRACTIONERS 

2^ND OCTOBER, 2013 

SUNBIRD MZUZU HOTEL

• Our lead facilitator, Dr Zeleza Manda and all facilitators
• Distinguished Participants
• Ladies and Gentlemen

I should start by saying that am delighted to be here and offer a few remarks before the start of this workshop. This is the third training that the Commission is organizing for the media as part of capacity building ahead of the Tripartite Elections in 2014.

The media are a crucial partner in elections and as Malawi Electoral Commission we are eager to see to it that our partners are discharging their roles in a professional and excellent manner and that any competency gaps should be addressed. That is why we have lined up a number of training workshops aiming at equipping our stakeholders with knowledge and skills.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the training starting today is very important and in the next two and half days we will need your maximum attention for you to get a certificate at the end.

Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to talk about the responsibility of the media in ensuring that we have free, fair and credible elections. Because the media reach out to a wider audience within a short time, you have a critical role of bringing electoral information to the public. You need to do this in a manner that does not disadvantage or project any contestant. Otherwise, if the media do not offer a level playing field for all contestants, this approach can easily undermine all the efforts by the Malawi Electoral Commission and all stakeholders to have free, fair and credible elections next year. This would be a disservice to the Malawian populace.

As the media you also have a responsibility of building a well informed electorate that is motivated and interested to participate in elections.

As we are in elections period, may I also appeal to you to exercise reason and rationale in your reporting. Elections are an emotive exercise because of what is at stake.  No one goes into an election expecting to lose although the fact still stands out that there will always be only one winner in an election. You should be cautious that the material you broadcast or publish does not perpetrate hostility, violence, aggression, hatred, tribalism, unrest, conflict or anything that falls in this class. Examples abound world over where media, without exercising caution in their reportage have fueled electoral disputes resulting in civil unrests and loss of life. The Rwandan genocide always stands out as a classical example. One of the radio presenters in Rwanda, Georges Henri Yvon Joseph Ruggiu, was sentenced to 12 years by the International Criminal Tribunal for inciting violence. And recently, during the previous elections in Kenya in 2007, the media had a portion of their blame for the aftermath violence that erupted . We would not want such scenarios for Malawi and that is why we are conducting trainings like this ones that will enable you report effectively about elections.

I should also urge you to be cautious on reporting opinion polls. We usually have pollsters surfacing during elections some of whom their credentials are very questionable and always come up with questionable poll statistics. We would urge you to question such characters before publicizing their results. Some of the opinions that are published, have potential impact of discouraging the electorate from participating in electoral activities and perpetuating voter apathy. Always ask them to disclose how they carried out their opinion polls, their sample size, who commissioned the opinion poll and when it was done. Few critical questions can unearth information that can help you establish whether an opinion poll was bogus or genuine.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Malawi Electoral Commission has taken a cycle approach to elections management, that is we are no longer treating elections as an event that takes place once every five years but as a cycle of five years. I also invite you to adopt the same cycle approach to your reporting about elections. It is common to see many journalists writing about elections, radios come up with special programes and newspapers coming up with special supplements during elections time. All these disappear after polling and determination of winners. With the electoral cycle approach, there will be many activities that will be happening in between the ballot that we will need you to publicise to the Malawian public.

People still need to be informed about electoral issues; those who attain voting age in between elections need to be educated about their right to vote and in all this we need the media. Your sustained reporting about electoral issues even after elections can greatly help counter voter apathy and maintain the interest of the electorate in election issues. That aside, you also have a responsibility on checking on elected officers to ensure that they are delivering what they promised the electorate during the campaign period.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I will not resume my seat without talking about the new media. Facebook, twitter, blogs and other platforms that have become effective and cost effective tools for communication. With the convergence of the media, we have already seen newspapers and radio stations setting up facebook pages. This just shows the influence that the social media platforms are gaining. I have also noted that some journalists have their own facebook pages and blogs where they post their material to share with the public. I should urge you to still apply your journalistic ethics and standards when using social media.

The media code of conduct is not suspended just because the material is being distributed through new media where we currently don’t have a legislation as a nation. Those with interactive platforms where readers can post comments ought to exercise care and responsibility that the comments being posted are palatable and that they could run in their papers or radio. If newspapers edit letters to the editor why should you not exercise the same with comments from readers for their online publications? Without curtailing freedom of expression, the media have a responsibility to ensure that there is sanity in the comments and feedback from readers that appears on the online publications.

It is now my hounor and privilege to declare this workshop opened. I wish you fruitful time and stay at this place.

Thank you very much

May God bless you all

May God Bless Our Nation

Malawi is a country so often undergoing multiple crises. Every administration has had to deal with a crisis of some kind. The last two weeks have presented Joyce Banda with perhaps the toughest challenge of her 17 months old presidency. Chief among the current problems is the corruption saga at the heart of her administration, which includes the horrific shooting of Budget Director in the Ministry of Finance, Paul Mphwiyo.

There is a looming hunger, which has already affected over a million people countrywide. Admarc depots run out of maize as early as September, early estimates ate that 10% will face hunger between now and the next harvest; and relations with Tanzania are not getting better either. President Banda has always been happy to remind everyone of the crumbling economy she inherited, but these problems have cropped up on her watch, and they are hers to solve. For first time key donors have raise their concern over the worrying levels of corruption within her government.

It is a crunch time. Yet, President Banda’s priority has been attending United Nations General Assembly, where the most notable activity has been addressing the Assembly, the rest of the time has been ‘talking to investors’ thing that no one really see the outcome of. Yes, the trip was planned ahead some of these problems but the president has not even bothered to cut her trip shorter to come and attend to these critical issues. It is difficult to think of any organised state where its president would do that and get away with it. It is not mandatory for a head of state to attend the Assembly, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador decided not to attend it this year because no one pays attention to what smaller countries say anyway. Correa opted to stay home deal with problems affecting his country.

At the Annual General Assembly, Joyce Banda assured the Assembly, well, those that were present and bothered to listen, that Malawi will meet only four of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), come the 2015 deadline. She assured the Assembly that since her ascendancy to power “Malawi is registering a strong economic recovery”. She urged the Assembly to ensure that the post-2015 MDGs agenda target rural areas where the most vulnerable people dwell. Pro-poor, grassroots has become President Banda’s favourite punch line. In this case, she did well to emphasise it because it localised the MDGs’ one-size-fits-all approach, which overlooks country specific problems.

Unfortunately, for President Banda, MDGs in its current format or its post-2015 design will not only fail in Malawi because of poor targeting or design; they will fail because of poor governance, corruption, impunity and lack of political will. Impunity and greed derailed Mutharika’s first term impressive economic performed. Joyce Banda is repeating the same thing by staying abroad; pretending all is well when her government is marred in serious corruption and more people are going hungry. Her government says there is no power vacuum in her presence, of course, there is not but President Banda must take lead, she must treat with these crises with seriousness it deserves.

Joyce Banda’s urge at the Assembly to ask the donor community to honour their financial pledges in order for developing countries to meet the MDGs did not come as a surprise. We are always looking for more funding instead of organising our affairs. The lesson is that prior to the donor aid free three years ago, when Bingu wa Mutharika turned autocratic, Malawian government was on track to meet at least six of the eight MDGs, now we are down to four – bad governance explains this, not poor funding. We all know that it is because Mutharika decided to put self-interest ahead of national interest that the economy derailed during his second term. His relentless effort to have his young brother succeeding him made him paranoid and death to voices of reason. Why won’t President Banda hear the pin-drop and do things different?

Malawi could meet MDGs and get kudos form the ‘international community’ but with persistent corruption fostered by lax leadership and impunity, the achievements of MDGs would not be sustained. For too long leaders in Malawi have ruled with total impunity, leaders say and do things just because they can, not because it is in the interest of Malawi and its people. President Banda was quick to say that she knew orchestrators of Mr Mphwiyo’s shooting; next, she was on the plane UN General Assembly leaving everyone guessing. President Banda knew she could get away with it, impunity. Now she wants everyone to stop speculating on the issue because apparently her government believes in the rule of law? Who started the speculations?

Since her ascendancy to power, President Banda has used every opportunity to reach out to the ‘international community’, and the world has well and truly responded an warm up to her. Yet, even they must slowly be waking up to the fact that MDGs or any sustainable development cannot be achieved where impunity and corruption is order of the day – such is current Malawi.

As a long suffering Malawian citizen who has now been waiting for many years for my court case to be concluded I nearly fell of my chair this morning when I heard that 0n Monday you declared in public that at least 80% of outstanding judgements were delivered.

I do not wish to dispute the figure you have quoted because I am in no position to do so. However when checking with some of my friends and colleagues in this regard we were at a total loss to understand why our cases were not included in the 80% of cases which were concluded especially those in the Supreme Court.

Your ladyship, I am in no position to and certainly do not wish to take issue with you regarding the above but I did feel the need to take the liberty to request you to seriously look into the matter of all still outstanding judgments as many Malawians have now been denied justice for many years and as the old adage says, “justice delayed is justice denied”. I can assure you with the greatest of respect that hundreds of us out there no fully understand the meaning of this but more importantly the devastating effect it has had on our lives and that of our families.

What also makes matters worse is that when we ask our attorneys in this regard the advice always seems to be that we should wait as complaining to some judges may lead to an adverse judgment which should never be the case. Surely we should not be discriminated against simply because we demand what is one of our constitutional rights as Malawi citizens.

If this is indeed to be the case, and I hope and pray that our attorneys are simply over cautions in this regard, as it would otherwise mean that judges are not only not performing their constitutional duties but are also intimidating the very public whom they are supposed to serve, and who also pay for their salaries and perks.

Your ladyship, I do understand that you took over at a very difficult time in Malawi legal history and that you have to face challenges that probably none of predecessors had to face.

However, I simply cannot understand why some of us have to wait for more than 5 years and others even more than 10 years to get finality in our cases in which we are merely trying to enforce rights which we believe we are legally entitled in terms of the laws of Malawi.

I therefore beg you on behalf of myself and all my fellow citizens that you intervene in such a manner whereby we not only hear about the other 80% who were so fortunate to have their matters finalised but also the many of us out there, (the “forgotten” 20%), who simply seem to have been relegated to obliviono over the last 10years or more.

God bless Your Ladyship

Yours faithfully,

David Banda

Soon after Paul Mphwiyo was short Mr Bright Malopa who is former MBC director general claimed to have visited Mr Mpwiyo at the south African Milpark hospital. He claims that he talked to one of the relatives who told him how Dr Ntaba saved his life and say he was not given a chance to meet Paul Mphiyo As much as we appreciate the efforts of Dr Ntaba on this fateful day , we found most of the statements by Mr Malopa as off point and just seeking to get sympathy as well as for political gains which needs to be avoided in addressing this shooting saga.

Firstly, Bright Malopa said Dr Ntaba does not work at the MASM clinic but Ntaba has revealed that he works at MASM clinic on part time basis. He is not employed by the ministry of health and at times he works at KCH as part of professional development. In this case Mr Bright Malopa wanted to create a picture that Dr Ntaba rushed to the clinic on personal grounds. This is a total lie. On this day Dr Ntaba was on call and very ready for any emergencies . Bright Malopa also failed to tell the nation that Dr Ntaba was paid for the services he lendered on that Friday night 

Secondly, Bright Malopa said Dr Ntaba was aware that he was treating the budget director Paul Mphwiyo. But Dr Ntaba has clearly said that he was not aware that this Paul was the one at the ministry of finance until the next day when he saw it in the papers. In this case Ntaba was purely treating Paul as a MASM client and he had no idea that he was treating the budget director. This is another sugar coated lie by Bright. 

Thirdly bright mentioned about Dr Ntaba terminal benefits and he has to say this “Mr Paul Mphwiyo is in charge of public funds from which Dr Ntaba’s terminal benefits are supposed to be paid. As Paul Mphwiyo is fighting for his life at a medical clinic in south Africa today though clearly out of danger after being saved from instant death by Dr Ntaba. Dr Ntaba is in court fighting for his terminal benefits whose disbursement officer is Paul Mphwiyo ” . To us the above statement shows how much anger Bright Malopa harbours against any one working in current government. This statement has nothing to do with this shooting and we would like to remind Mr Malopa that Mr Mphwiyo was entitled to all the medical attention he got that day as he always pays medical insurance . Dr Ntaba was also just doing his Job which he is always paid for.

Bright Malopa failed to appreciate the work of the nurse at the MASM clinic that night. This nurse managed to do the basic resuscitation measures even before the arrival of Dr Ntaba that helped to stabilise the fluid level of the patient. In this case Bright was interested in heaping more praise to Dr Ntaba just because they all share the same plate in the political arena . 

In short Bright Malopa statements on Paul Mphwiyo saga are out of order as most of them seeks just to score political points and favour. As much as it is appreciated how Ntaba acted after the incidence , Mr Malopa mixing of issues portrays his true character of twisting stories and building personal propagandas as he used to do while working at MBC. 

We appreciate the services Dr Ntaba offered on that fateful night but these services were purely offered in the line of duty and also many other medical personels offered a hand without which Dr Ntaba alone couldn’t succeed . We wish all the best to all health personnel who are working day and night to offer services to the nation

It is time to STOP, Think, Reflect, Re-strategize and Re-launch. It is strange how we keep on doing what our forefathers did, our grandparents did, our parents did and they all failed… What makes us think we will get different results from the same formula, same actions, same mindset? Here is a list of the few things I am convinced have not worked so far…

 1) Thinking a hoe will help us end hunger

2) Believing rain-fed agriculture will bring food security
3) Believing politicians have our welfare at heart
4) Believing donors really care for us
5) Thinking we need thousands of people to bury one dead person!
6) Believing a job can give us financial security for life
7) Believing we will develop economically without promoting entrepreneurship
 Thinking someone in Europe and America should sacrifice their hard-earned income to feed and take care of our children, whom we bear without any plan on how we will feed and educate them.
9) Trusting “the Lord will make a way where there seems to be no way” while doing nothing with our God-given talents and resources