A Modest Proposal For Recovering Malawi Economy

The events of 17^th January and the vociferous pronouncements of its organizers are surely causing, and will continue to cause, uneasiness in government circles. 
 

You might argue, as some have, that the January 17 mass demonstrations has succeeded in telling Malawians that peaceful demonstrations are possible only if Malawians see disagreements in viewpoints as strength, though most sadly, the demonstrations will most likely fail to achieve its keys goals as  the petition seems to have been pushed into oblivion by the government.

Whatever the January 17 goals were, and whatever it is the Joyce Banda administration is doing to recover the economy (if at all it was made in the first place), one thing is for sure: the Joyce Banda administration does not have a more modest proposal for economic recovery than the author’s.

To this end, the author seeks to offer his own modest proposal, like did Jonathan Swift in olden Ireland, for economic recovery that is not only practical but also feasible for a country with a struggling economy like Malawi.

It is imperative for government to sell the presidential jet and share the money amongst the top government officials. Once that is done, make sure that a little sum of the money be used to silence critical journalists, otherwise these guys seem not to get a life whenever they sense ill-gotten money. Make sure all middle men get a share for fear of becoming loose-mouthed should another party dislodge from power in 2014 and form a new government.

The money shared is needed for our honourable cabinet members and party loyalists are fast slimming to due to the Kwacha devaluation and floatation. We need that money for them to grow potbellies and belch when talking to our aid agencies and their representatives so that they do not look pathetic. We need that to beg more money and thus grow, ohh, recover our economy.

Again, there is need for the government to reconsider its position on Malawi Rural Development Fund (MARDEF). Thanks to good thinking of the Peoples Party (PP) strategists’ antics, the reconsideration has already been done. K1.6 billion of the K3 billion of Youth Enterprise Development Fund (Yedef) money should not be, and of course has not been, distributed on the basis of citizenship, No! but on the basis of cronyism and party allegiance. The need to make public the beneficiaries of the same should be, and has been quashed in the name of cost-cutting measure, Ooops!.  No need to publish the names because the money we will use to have the names appear in the local print can be used to buy medicine for our medicine-dry hospitals and referrals.

Medicine-dry hospitals? 

That reminds me. Since it is the poor, the lazy mothers and fathers and their children in the villages who invite us the scorn associated with lack of medicine in our hospitals, it will do the government economic justice if it is thought as follows: stagnant salaries and wages for the parents and cheap labor for the children.

The Joyce Banda government should not raise the salaries and wages of poor working majority for two economically sensible reasons; firstly, to make them work more and thus making more returns for government either directly or through taxes, and lastly to save enough money for stocking drugs in our local hospitals.

As for the children, ooh  nothing much from them. Since their parents’ salaries are stagnant and school fees is ever more increasing with increase in inflation, it follows that their parents will not afford to pay school fees and will thus drop school. They will start looking for jobs, and as less qualified as they are, they will end up being employment in tobacco and sugarcane estates and sometimes in building contractors as ‘mud guys’.

That way, our tobacco and sugarcane will get the utmost attention and our buildings will be built within schedule and cheaply. The end result of this is never-ending run of projects and initiatives that add value and credence to our economy, thereby recovering it from the mess it was left, so the thinking goes, by the late Bingu wa Mutharika and his money-hungry friends now coaxed into the governing Orange camp.

Whosoever said that a government