Muhammad Ali remains one of the
greatest boxers to ever grace the boxing ring. He once was quoted as saying: “I
hated every minute I was training, but I said: ‘Dont quit, suffer now and live
the rest of your life as champion’”. He surely has lived as champion,
honoured by the whole boxing fraternity. He has been every effective. The very definition
of effectiveness creates a contestation. Some regard it as the measure of
output regardless of the quantity of input, while others view it as capacity to
produce the intended results. In all sense of the contestation, effectiveness
has more to do with the outcome than the defence of it. The only measure we have
to the government is not how defensively articulate it has been to its critics,
but how it has delivered.
The previous governments have
been obsessively recruiting spin-doctors and media experts to cover up their
mediocrity. Once the government starts hunting around for the scribes, the
intellectual mass, and completely ignores and suppresses public opinion and
advice, know that the writing is on the wall, we will have another mediocre
government. Recent developments in Malawi, have prompted me to pick up a pen
and write. The first is the killings of our friends with albinism, the second
is the introduction of user fees in our public hospitals, and the third is the
rumour of the appointment of a second vice president.
To begin with, the killing of our
brothers and sisters born with albinism. I have been shocked at how merciless
we are as a society to the plight of other people. It is bizarre that poverty
can throw us to the level of dogs, who could munch on another dead dog. Two
things that come to my mind is that there is no way, such merciless killings
would get to this extent if the communities and government had relentlessly
resisted and tackled it. The second is that the attitude of pointing fingers in this era, should
be replace with an attitude of doing something about it. I will propose that
the community, the police and the government do something to tract down these
killers. But killing a killer is not solving the crime in this situation. We
need to capture the whole syndicate. This is a network of buyers of human parts
and the whole supply chain. I am of the opinion that there are some greedy,
evil tycoons, financing the whole saga, and these could be within and without
our boundaries. It is our responsibility as a community to supply the
information to the law enforcers on these things and the law enforcers act.
Where the law enforcers, Police, do not seem to be acting, then we have a very
serious problem. What we need is not rhetoric what we need is action. We need
to be implementing what we devise.
On the second matter of introduction
of user fees in our public hospitals, I believe it is a very inhuman idea that
will not improve the conditions of our country but severe it, to say the least.
The Ministry of Health, should consult the National Statistical Office (NSO)
first before launching the policy. The sad reality gripping our fellow
Malawians and rural populations, is that they have to be cushioned, most of
them can barely afford a packet of sugar. It is believed that the recent
findings from the World Bank, was based on the GDP per capita, where Malawi has
or had a GDP per capita of 262 US dollars. Any person who would wish to divide
that GDP per capita to the number of days in a year will reach at a nerve-wrecking
figure of less than a dollar a day. Truth be told on average most Malawians are living on a less than a dollar a day. The conditions in the rural areas are dire, the fact that they have
just been recently hit by the natural disaster, makes them more vulnerable and
poorer than before. So the government should devise another means of cushioning
these rural masses, especially where the tax regime is already hitting them even
harder, where the plight of their livelihood solely depends on rain-fed
agriculture, where the state of hospital infrastructure is close to oblivion,
where the availability of medication is not guaranteed, where the condition of
roads are very bad, the distance to and from the hospital, general hospital, or even
a health facility is appallingly long, and much more, where most of the sick
have to walk these long distances, and
support other areas of their livelihood. Introducing a fee of MK1,500 for every
sick accessing medical services at the health centre, hospital and other
clinics, is as good as nipping the majority poor Malawians off the bud. I
believe heads can bang at the capital hill on alternative measures to meet
their medical requirements.
On the recent reports of the
suggested appointment of a second vice president, I want to have myself believe
that it is a mere rumour. It is an obvious means of draining the resources from
an already economically weakened government. The political and economic repercussions
of such a decision are unfathomable. We need to carefully place the country on
an economic footing that will enable it flourish, instead of working on means
of appeasing other political echelons.
In conclusion, the practice of
mere talking has not throughout history yielded results beyond those who walked
the talk. An example is given of a former Iraq Minister of Information during the 2003 Iraq Invasion, that he talked a lot on Iraq winning the war, when in fact they were losing it. The government must walk the talk in some of these things to improve
our societies. Servant leadership is one concept that needs walking the
talking. Good governance, improved security, and accessible health services and
other social services are its close cousins, for effective government
performance. They are hard to implement and painful at times, but the end result is a prosperous, better Malawi!
