By Jack McBrams
Every time I travel and introduce myself as Malawian, I brace myself. Not for curiosity—that would be welcome—but for the predictable interrogation that follows. The moment I hand over my passport, I stop being a private citizen and become an unofficial spokesperson for a country whose failures are now globally legible.
What happened to your Vice President?” “Why is your country so poor?” “How is Pastor Chakwera?” Or, depending on the audience, “How is Prophet Bushiri?”
I answer politely, of course. I explain that our Vice President died in a plane crash after authorities thought it acceptable to fly him in an aircraft that never should have left the ground. I struggle to explain poverty without sounding like an apologist for incompetence. I feign ignorance about pastors-turned-presidents and prophets-turned-fugitives, because even satire has its limits.
Yet, almost without fail, the conversation ends with the same compliment: Malawians are so friendly. So honest. So hardworking.
And that, right there, is why I am angry.
Globally, Malawians are known for integrity and work ethic. We are trusted employees, reliable neighbours, tireless labourers. We survive. We endure. We hustle—legally, quietly, patiently. Which makes what has happened to this country over the past two decades not just tragic, but obscene.
A major daily recently reported that Malawi may have lost 10 trillion Malawi Kwacha—over $5 billion—through fraud, corruption, and illicit financial flows in the last twenty years. That number is so large it risks becoming meaningless unless we translate it into real life.
That money is not “missing.” It is visible everywhere.
It is in clinics that were never stocked, where nurses improvise with empty shelves. In classrooms that were never built, where children learn under trees. In roads that were never maintained, now monuments to neglect. In jobs that never materialised, leaving young people idle, angry, and expendable.
Cashgate. The looting of COVID-19 funds. The K39 billion Greenbelt Authority plunder.
These are not isolated scandals. They are symptoms of a system that allows a small clique to extract obscene wealth at the direct expense of public service delivery. Let us be clear: this is not patriotism. It is not politics. It is greed—unembellished and unapologetic.
What angers me more than the theft itself is what follows it. Headlines are plentiful. Arrests are announced. Investigations are launched. But cases drag on, stall, or quietly fade away. The absence of consequence weakens deterrence and erodes public trust. In Malawi, accountability is loud at the beginning and silent at the end.
Only a handful of Cashgate suspects were meaningfully held to account. Almost no one has answered for the plunder of COVID-19 funds while Malawians gasped for oxygen in ICU wards. And to this day, the President has not unequivocally condemned the Greenbelt haemorrhage.
Silence, in this context, is not neutrality. It is complicity.
Now let me explain why this anger is not theoretical.
Beyond journalism, my work takes me deep into Malawi’s remotest villages—places that do not trend, do not vote loudly, and do not matter in boardrooms. Off the grid, far from press conferences and ribbon-cuttings, you meet the real Malawi.
You hear stories, raw and unfiltered, of people scraping through daily life through no fault of their own. Farmers broken by climate shocks. Families crushed by fertiliser prices that have pushed a basic input beyond reach. Mothers who are not asking for handouts, only a chance—a small push—to get back on their feet.
These people are not poor. They are impoverished by systems that have failed them.
And here is the uncomfortable truth: the primary job of government is not speeches, convoys, or allowances. It is to do the basics well—stop public money from leaking and ensure what is available is spent on improving the lives of people living in poverty. That is how nations stabilise, grow, and earn legitimacy. Anything else is theatre.
So explain this to me slowly, like I am five: how is it representative democracy when MPs live lavishly while their constituents cannot afford fertiliser? How do you represent people whose lives you do not share, whose pain you do not feel, whose taxes you do not pay?
Yes—do not pay.
How do you relate to hunger when you are tax-exempt? How do you understand anger when your fuel, cars, and meals are subsidised by the very people you have abandoned?
At this point, one has to ask: is this a failure of representative democracy, or a failure of our humanity?
We brand ourselves a “God-fearing nation,” yet there is nothing godly about stealing food from people’s mouths without remorse. Whether done by MPs, civil servants, or politically connected fixers, it is the same moral collapse. We have failed to be our brother’s keepers while loudly quoting scripture.
Let me be clear: I am not arguing against prosperity. People should enjoy the fruits of their labour. But the overnight rags-to-riches stories among our so-called representatives should alarm us all. Wealth without productivity, without innovation, without traceable value creation is not success. It is extraction.
And extraction breeds revolt.
Which brings me to public projects—the corruption you can see.
In my neighbourhood, a 4.2-kilometre road has taken over four years to complete and has been abandoned halfway through for more than a year. Up the road, the Kaunda Road, connecting Gateway Mall to Kanengo through Areas 47, 49, and 25, has seen four years of activity that largely consists of earthmoving. Progress without purpose. Motion without momentum.
The message this sends is devastating: we are not serious people. We lack urgency. We lack accountability. We are comfortable with mediocrity
And the world notices.
I have heard it whispered, in diplomatic corridors and polished language, that Malawians are not capable of ruling themselves. It is an offensive statement. It should outrage us. But outrage is not enough when our leadership keeps working overtime to make that insult sound plausible.
So yes, I am angry. Angry because our people deserve better. Angry because our reputation for honesty is being auctioned off by a few. Angry because indifference has become policy.