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President Bingu wa Mutharika has come under fire from opposition parties for failing to keep his inaugural promise of appointing a lean cabinet on merit, arguing that the bloated cabinet will eat a chunk from the debt relief funds.
Malawi Congress Party (MCP) vice-president Nicholas Dausi accused Mutharika of not keeping his word to appoint a lean cabinet, saying Malawi is too poor to financially anchor a 42-member cabinet.
“Is this how we are going to use the debt relief money?”questioned Dausi. “Should we use the debt relief money on political appeasement? This is purely financial extravagance.”
Added the MCP spokesperson: “The president has moved away from meritocracy to mediocrity. This is simply an appeasement aimed at buying support in Parliament.”
Dausi said Mutharika has appointed almost all the Members of Parliament from the Southern Region who support the President’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
He, however, said the North, which declared to be the stronghold for DPP as evidenced by a sign post at Jenda which says ‘Welcome to the DPP territory’, has not benefited from the political appeasement appointments.
He said Malawi will be a laughing stock because richer countries like the United States of America and the United Kingdom have lean cabinets.
United Democratic Front (UDF) spokesman Sam Mpasu said the President has broken many promises since he ascended to power in 2004.
“Just look at his Cabinet material. He has not considered the merit aspect, the size of the Cabinet is ridiculous and the regional balance is a disaster. Over half of the Cabinet is from the South,” he said.
“When you have people with no proper qualifications heading very important ministries, there is something wrong and without exaggerating things, there is no merit. It’s a campaign strategy, he is looking forward to 2009,” he said.
Mpasu said the Ministry for Presidential and Parliamentary Affairs headed by Davis Katsonga would undermine the work of the Leader of Government and Chief Whip in Parliament.
“The position is intended at smoothening the relationship between the Executive and Parliament. But in our case here, it will undermine the role of the Leader of the House and government Chief Whip because they were doing that,” he said.
However, DPP secretary general Hetherwick Ntaba said the opposition parties’ arguments do not make sense and that they have made themselves irrelevant because they oppose everything.
Ntaba, who was dropped from the Cabinet in the last reshuffle, questioned the criteria the opposition was using to determine that the new appointments were not done on merit.
“We expect this kind of murmers from them, they dignify nothing. Their arguments make no sense at all and they have made themselves irrational and irrelevant,” he said.
On the issue of regional balance, Ntaba said: “The opposition will always find something to oppose. It’s only when your thinking is regionalist that you can view the appointments that way. This is a nationalist Cabinet.”
Executive director for Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) Undule Mwakasungura said the country can do away with deputy ministers to save some financial resources.
Mwakasungura concurred with opposition parties, saying Mutharika was going against his pledge of maintaining a lean cabinet of not more than 20 people.
“Is it important for Malawi to have deputy ministers when we have Principal Secretaries? I think we can do away with these deputy ministers because it is not sustainable,” he said.
The CHRR executive director cautioned the President against bringing more people from other political parties into Cabinet as an appeasement strategy and without consulting their leaders.
“You can’t just be poaching people from other parties, this weakens the opposition and it defeats the essence of multiparty democracy,” he said.
Mutharika announced his 42-member cabinet on Thursday, dropping former Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Bazuka Mhango and former Sports and Culture Minister Jaffalie Mussa.
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