|
UDF does not care about civil servants
The whole of last month, March, President Bakili Muluzi has been flying across the country almost everyday holding campaign rallies promoting his anointed successor Bingu Mutharika and his runningmate Cassim Chilumpha. One day he would be in Mulanje, castigating Bulaundi and other leaders, and telling the people to vote for a fellow Lomwe—Bingu—then the following day he would fly to Dowa and back to Blantyre.
It is obvious each trip costs millions of kwacha from taxpayer money. You may wish to know that wherever Muluzi goes, he is followed by cabinet ministers, police, army, NIB, chief executives of statutory bodies and their directors. Statutory organisations like Escom, Water Boards, MHC are ordered to release vehicles to ferry people from adjoining districts to all Muluzi's rallies. Government loses lots of money paid out as allowances, for fuel and other logistical issues.
Talking about abusing people to Muluzi's rallies, UDF are not ashamed that they are cheating themselves by giving people the impression the rallies are crowd pullers when the reality is that a majority of the people at Muluzi's rallies are ferried from other districts. We have talked about the lyo, lyo, lyo women before. They are everywhere. Muluzi can as well be said to be addressing almost the same people wherever he goes. But this was just a side issue.
The substantive matter I want to discuss here is the UDF government failure to pay March salaries to the over 120,000 civil servants. Just come to think of it! Government has no money for salaries and yet it has it in abundance for UDF campaign. Government also has no shortage of money for Muluzi's gallivanting. Muluzi was in Mozambique this week and left the country on a day families of civil servants were starving. This government has failed to increase salaries for civil servants during the 10 years it has been in power. And it does not want to pay them even their meagre salaries. What are UDF's priorities?
Not that I am surprised though. This government has never had its priorities right. That is why, Bingu Mutharika, in his political document One Malawi, Our Nation, which was a background to the formation of his former party, United Party, states in its preface:
The ruling United Democratic government has made many grave errors ... These are errors in judgement: errors in strategy and errors of management. As a result, no visible growth is taking place. Indeed the poor people are getting poorer. People are disappointed by the fact that they have been given a long list of unfulfilled promises about poverty alleviation. We have realised that Malawi is no better off than at the time of the Referendum. 'The Economic Report 1997' suggests that we are in fact worse off now than even before”.
Bingu went on to launch his UP under which he contested 1999 elections and lost. He got the least votes. Muluzi got 2.4 million, Gwanda 2.1 million and Bingu got just a few thousands, fewer than Kamlepo Kalua's and Bishop Mkhumbwe's. Gwanda deserves to be congratulated for this feat considering that his biggest opponent, Muluzi, used and abused all government resources and paraphernalia he could lay his hands on. The good showing for Gwanda also means people accepted him. He has been tried and tested. That was just a detour.
Today, Bingu is speaking a different language. First he dissolved UP. Then Muluzi gave him a job at the Reserve Bank and later appointed him Minister of Economic Planning and Development, then as UDF presidential candidate. We now hear Bingu saying UDF has transformed the lives of Malawians. My foot! Only the President and a few people like Bingu himself who can parrot UDF rhetoric on MBC and TVM have benefited under Muluzi's government. Bingu cannot tell the nation his document One Malawi, Our Nation which he wrote while heading Comesa was just a joke.
Unfortunately, for fear of discrediting Muluzi, Bingu's campaign message is that he will continue to implement UDF government's policies. Of course, the problem is not necessarily policies but lack of political will to implement the policies. An attractive agenda to earn votes is one which maps out a plan to reverse the current economic malaise. A road map which shows how Malawians will be taken out of the poverty trap caused by UDF's mismanagement and flagrant abuse of resources.
I did not exhaust the discussion on government's failure to pay civil servants their dues. Yes, this is total arrogance on the part of the UDF. They have money to reward Hetherwick Ntaba and give him a ministerial position—because he will campaign for Bingu. A new ministry (just for one-and-a-half months!) obviously means government will spend more money which may not have been budgeted for.
Government has enough money to pay NIB, who accompany Muluzi during his trips, local and foreign, and whose services cannot be appreciated by the taxpayer. But government does not have money to pay civil servants who make some of this money by virtue of being taxpayers and who render vital service for the government machinery to run.
All this shows how lopsided UDF priorities are. What the government is interested in is the campaign. Period. And if these people are so arrogant—they don't care a hoot now when they should be wooing people to vote for them, how much worse things will be should they be voted back into power?
The choice is yours civil servants and your families and relatives. You know why you are in that mess and how you can get out of it.
|
