On the Abuse of Resources

Today happens to be Friday, the 26^th of August in the year 2016. The country is Malawi and we are under the “DPP government” which was ushered into power (we probably need to change this to “responsibility”) in the year 2014.

There was a tight campaign for the presidential seat then with the MCP, DPP, UDF and the then ruling (another word we need to change; probably to “governing” or something) outsmarting each other. There were a couple of other candidates on the sidelines, and they probably knew that they were not going to win (achina Ellen Singh of the “Mbatata ndi yaimuna, mbatatesi ndi yaikazi” fame, John Chisi and Chipani Cha Pfuko’s Davies Katsonga). There was one candidate who came up with one radical point in his manifesto, though. Mark Katsonga told us that the first thing he would do if we entrusted him (which we didn’t) with the top post in the country he would close account number one. Account number one, dear reader, is the gafment’s account, which is probable held at some branch of the Reserve Bank and it is where government resources are pooled. Pooled so that every ministry and department can get the little they need for their activities.

Many wondered as to why he suggested such a radical move. His response? He wanted to protect public funds which he thought were very vulnerable in that account. He probably is more informed than half of the Malawian population so he is entitled to his opinion.

Fast forward to 2016, we have a lot being written in our papers and online publications. MK238 billion cashgate, MK557 billion cashgate and all that are hitting the press now and then and if you think of it soberly, we can never be sure about how much was siphoned from the public coffers.  All we know is that ndizambiri ndithu, but the people who are the master minders of the stealing are still walking free. Maybe we shouldn’t talk about them, but rather the fact that our money was misplaced. Maybe Mark had a point. The main point here is that this was a taxpayer’s money (whether foreign or domestic) and it had its own purpose, before someone decided that he would rather have it as his own. That was a gross misappropriation of funds which had an intended purpose.

Most of us do point to the government when it comes to this issue of kusolola, but we need to understand that this is happening everywhere. I once had a chat with the CEO of one of the Insurance Companies in town and he told me how it is hard to find honest people who you can trust with your funds in a company among the many who qualify for the job. Maybe that is a bit too obvious again. There is the church. Take a look at the news and see how many are abusing church funds. Some have even made a joke out of the fundraisers our churches organize for projects and how those projects never come to completion. Kusolola.

A tale is told of one church that wrote a proposal to its HQ komwe ku Ulaya. They had an idea of a project for helping the underprivileged in their area. On a good note, the proposal got accepted. I mean, those were some good missionary and Jesus-like ideas there. Issues came in when they had to agree on the implementation. Local leaders wanted the money to come into their account while the donors wanted the money to go directly to the beneficiaries. Did they agree on something? Unfortunately, no. People just didn’t want to have the money pass through the church’s account number one. Cases like these make one wonder whether there are people who are for real out here. This gets pretty dangerous when you discover that there are a lot of people who are starting organizations and a lot more who are organizing seminars; teaching them how to write proposals for funding. If they get the funding, they sure will be able to account for it by writing reports and producing receipts, but very little if any of those funds will leave the desired mark in the society.

Talking of the misappropriation of funds, it is happening at many levels in both the public and private sector. His Excellency even conceded to the fact that there is corruption in the country and pleaded with us to leave the public purse alone. Without further comments, I would like to echo his words (mauwotu, eti?) I think it is high time we got the discipline of using money for its intended purpose without compromising. I have a reason to believe that the K577 billion or K1 trillion kwachas (we are currently not sure as to how much) which have gone down the drain could have made a difference in some community’s livelihood had they gone through the intended channel.

Interestingly enough, I think the issues to do with the discipline of using money for its intended purpose or lack of thereof comes from within our communities and homes. Abuse of Area Development Funds (or whatever you call them) is not a thing that sends chills down leaders’ spines in our homes. Spending money that was meant for food on hair products isn’t much of an issue with our ladies. Kumwera fees? Let’s not even go there. I have probably used the money they sent me with to buy tomatoes for ndiwo zalero to buy credit just to update my blog. That is how undisciplined we are.

Generally we are a resource limited country. That is an undeniable fact but some of these issues we have come from our own doing. Misappropriating of valuable resources is costing us development at personal, society, corporate and national level. We need to be thinking about putting money to the intended use if we are to take a step forward.

Extra advice. It is the end of the month and you probably have been thinking of some important things you want to do with your money. You might want to stick to that other than regret and keep postponing progress. For friends in colleges I have this reminder that upkeep allowance is not for swag or drinks or hairdos. It is for food for goodness’ sake. Intended use, right? Osamadzibera.

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On Excuses

Another Friday

Having been annoyed by the conduct of people who were supposed to be making me feel happy and relieved over the past week, I thought I was going to write a very long and impolite rant on friendship management. I wanted to satirize the readership on how they should wish the author the best when he is celebrating his anniversary with Nabanda, wish him a quick recovery when he is down with sepsis (that is what the doctor who saw him wrote) and help him with airtime for posting and sharing the next article. I however decided against that when something else came to my attention.

We will not go around this issue. This is about ESCOM, the body Malawians trusted to provide power to the nation. If you do not share a line with the hospitals, state house or the College of Medicine, you should have an idea of what a nuisance ESCOM has been when it comes to power cuts. I think I am now used to that. When power goes off at 6 am it comes back a few minutes to 2 pm. If it goes off at 2 pm it comes back sometime between 7:30 and 8 pm. That is the usual schedule but there are also some night specials (at least two of those in a week). Somehow that has stopped annoying me because I do have it covered, usually.

There is, however, one thing that annoys me about ESCOM (and of course Blantyre Water Board); the excuses they make. In the rainy season ESCOM will always give you the excuse that there is silt and stuff making it difficult for them to generate power. In the dry season we hear about the low water levels (this happens year after year) and one would wonder when we have just enough water to generate power without causing any trouble with the silt and stuff. In April and May, maybe? Whatever the answer to that question is, I think that it is time we moved from these stupid (oh, yeah I used that word) excuses and moved on to fixing the problems we have.

ESCOM may be the classical example but from the look of things these excuses are made everyday from across the professions and citizenry (if you know what I mean).  Classical examples? “Yes, we do have corruption in Malawi but the same is true for Zambia”. That is a direct quote from a big person in our government. “The problems we have with electricity are also being faced in surrounding countries”. What a way of self justification from someone who works with the Electricity Supply Corporation. From the look of things it seems like people who are supposed to be thinking innovatively to solve our issues go into the office just to think of excuses with which to feed the nation. Should we be surprised? I think not.

This culture of working on finding excuses over ways gets to be cultivated into us from a very tender age for some reason I am not sure of. When we failed a test the defense was that only a quarter of the class made it. We used to carry that around, asking about the statistics every time instead of striving to get into the little fraction of those on the positive side of things. This sort of thing gets carried into high school (by this I mean secondary school; CDSS), college and eventually into our workplaces, marriages, churches, communities and all that matters. Excuses, excuses and more excuses.

One would wonder why this matters. If having running water and power all day everyday is a basic need to you, then I think this should matter to you. Point is that if we are to have things the better way in this nation it will take a strong will from us Malawians and not some IMF to fix it. If we want to have all the basic needs, if we want to have the best health and education system, if we are to be the tourism (someone mentioned investment in these lines too) heaven we wish to be, if we are to turn from an importing to exporting nation, if we are to win a medal at the Olympics and whatever good thing people have written in their manifestos (that is where you can find some nice visions for the country), we need to rise above excuses and find ways. We need to get on our feet and start to be aiming high. If there are blackouts in Malawi, we need to look to Rwanda and learn from how they solved the issue that side other than looking down to how Zambia is doing way worse than us. Of course I did not recommend a study tour to Rwanda because Google is always available.

Having said that, I think this needs to start on a personal level. We need to move from being people of the perfect excuses to people who can find ways in our academics, spirituality, relationships, finances and every other aspect of life. Only then will we be able to take this to another level and make things better for the country. Apo biii….

On Relationships

It is yet another Friday.

Having tackled the fees and posted about integration of different life aspects, it was time to take an extra mile with randomness and talk about something that I have evaded since the Lessons from the Man from Ulumba. Zachikondi izi.

Some would wonder as to why I have taken this turn. Well. For the first time in a very long time I had some time to sit with Harry Chikasamba for a whole 6 hours or so and too much wisdom exchanged minds in the conversation, with some of it addressing issues in this line. Adding to that, I have observed that there are a lot of social media complaints (now these are unofficial and not addressed to anyone) about how relationships have lost their taste in recent times. This is probably something you might have heard or said yourself and we cannot question the truth in the statement. We can only set the records straight with  clarification; despite the fact that generally relationships are  bit of a mess, there are some that are truly enjoying and some that are on their way to enjoying a wonderful relationship.

There might be a lot of reasons for which we have this situation; unrealistic expectations, lack of commitment, Korean movies (achina Boys Over Flowers), poor advice on relationship matters (anthu akuuzidwa ngini kunjaku) and of course the issue of lack of preparation. I do not need to dissect each and every one of these things, but I think there are a couple of them that are critical.

Some little observation of people around and a little eavesdropping on other people’s conversations has taught me that some of the things we call relationships stumble because of the lack of a clear purpose for the relationship. Ideally I would get here and plaster my thinking on all of you, telling you that the one and only true purpose of a meaningful relationship is to end up in holy (or not so holy, ndi zi ma constitution zanuzi) matrimony of some sort. That is pretty much the case if you are to think in the lines of two thirds of the societal norms but the modern Americanized young person has added a whole load of things to that and some of them are not what me and my fellow conservatives would call pleasant which has come in as a problem.

If I am to argue from my personal perspective, I would say a relationship that is not marriage oriented lacks foresight and can easily sink when sailing through the rough waters of the day. The reason is that people have nothing to motivate them to keep going because all the can think of are the lunch dates and the sex that come with the relationship; which at the end they (think or know) can get from someone else. Not many a relationship survive with this “chakudya cha lero” kind of mentality.

From the liberal point of view (nanga si zikatha zambiri mukumati simumaganizako zokwatira) I would argue to say that there is a lot of misalignment of interest in our relationships. While one person wants one thing and thinks the partner wants the same, their partner is looking for a totally different thing. You wouldn’t expect things to work in such scenarios.

Lack of preparation is another factor that leads to unsuccessful relationships. Like any other kind of project (yeah, I called it that) this whole relationship business requires some preparation. Forget about the knowing each other thing; this starts within oneself. Every human  needs to sit down and think about whether they are ready for a relationship or not and if yes, what kind of it. The idea is that this preparation for oneself guides one as to what kind of person to fall for and the type of relationship they want. This has not been the case from what I have seen. People suffer a breakup on one day and end up in another relationship a few days later. There are in fact some who have told me in my face that ever since they had their relationship they have never stayed single for more than a week. Would that be a heavy habit? You tell me.

There is, then, the critical issue of guidance. Some of our relationships are not living to their full potential in terms of life span and levels of enjoyment thanks to poor guidance or a total lack of it. To be honest, the past few years have seen me graduate from being a person who hates it when atsogoleri give advice to little girls on matters of relationships to a person who gets angry when they do so (and of course when they overdo it). It is good to acknowledge that there are some who want the ideals when it come to relationships and not many of them know what it takes. Those need guidance in the same and they constantly need to be given the same in one way or another.

In the light of the guidance factor, we have a number of issues the first one of which is that most of us (the 90’s babies) are the know-it-all type. Sitimva zamunthu especially on relationships. Second is that we get advice from either those who are inexperienced or those who are doing it wrong (while they think they are doing it right) and lastly (for now) we have people  who take advice as the gospel truth without regurgitating it and relating it to their own person and situation before applying it. I know some of you relate to what you are reading because of what you have observed or experienced. No more explanations.

With the main ailments to the modern day relationship pointed out, I think it is time we prescribe the remedy. I personally do believe that we could cut a whole lot of trouble associated with relationships by having a whole lot of time to prepare for them emotionally and otherwise. That would give us an idea of what sort of relationship we would want to be in and consequently what kind of person we want to be in it with. The thought of the whole thing would make us think of taking our time before jumping into the first or the next one. Relationships may be difficult to handle and that is where the need for guidance comes. The only thing we can do about this is to filter our sources of advice and to relate it with our very situation before applying it other than taking crude guidance and applying it unfractionated to your own relationship (or singleness). I will mention the obvious. Before you get into a relationship (for those who haven’t tested the waters and those who are to test more) get to know the potential spouse. Helps to know if interests are aligned.

I never mentioned anything to do with love here, but I do believe that when some of these things are followed love would still flow in abundance, whatever your definition of love is. People say that relationships should not be hinged on money, which is true, but I would point out that the lunch date everyone should have once in a while(had one with Nabanda a couple of days ago) needs a couple of aloe veras.

We will not go to the Hollywood or Korean movies for now, but I hope someone has gotten a little lesson while the other has had a refresher course on the one thousand paged book they red on a similar topic.

Hey. These things have to be fun so set the standards.

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Random Thoughts on Segmentation and Integration

So…

Last Friday we had a whole longer-than-usual article about the fees.  A lot of critics put up their comment and the most important of the criticisms was that I seemed not to have picked a side. To respond to that (masiku ano ndiziyankha), that was a deliberate move for obvious reasons.

Fast forward to this Friday, the President (after reading my article, I think) has responded by granting the University of Malawi Students’ Union leaders an audience. I am told the meeting resulted in the reduction of the fees by a “whooping” K50, 000.00, which of course has attracted a whole range of reactions from across the nation. Some are cursing the UMSU leadership while others are giving them a thumbs-up. Some (of us) are saying that the granting of the audience was a cosmetic gesture considering the margin of the reduction of the fees while on the other end of the spectrum some have silenced us telling us that we should keep our dirty mouths shut because fees has fallen. Well. Vow of silence made.

Immediately after posting and sharing last week’s article I bumped into a politician who was chatting with students about the same fee hike, giving some insights on how best to sail in the tricky waters of the politics surrounding the hike. It was a pretty interesting discussion because the gentleman in question was suggesting the use of some clause in the university council’s press to the advantage of the students. The reason I am sharing this, however is that the discussion took an interesting turn and shifted to the standards of higher education in the country as a whole.

There was a discussion about this whole issue of accommodation in our public universities. Most of you might be aware that accommodation in the public universities is privatized and that most of the students who are supposed to be staying on campus are living elsewhere, having an obvious negative impact on their academic life. During the discussion about accommodation, the gentleman brought in an issue of the community colleges. He cited that those are being underused as compared to the colleges that train health professionals. This he said considering the heavy work a nurse in training from KCN does at KCH and elsewhere, and the 24 hour call a final year medical student has to do in the Gogo Chatinkha maternity wing. He said that there is little to show of the practical done by our friends, and that it is high time we got them to work in the building of new hostels in our colleges. I know that already some of you are dismissing this as theoretical thinking. I cannot blame you for that, but what his point reminded me was the fact that most of the things in the country are segmented and that we have failed to use various systems to compliment each other for the development of this nation.

Many have at some point questioned why there have been no renovations in the Polytechnic infrastructures when they have a whole lot of students in the faculty of built environment. That is pretty much the same as the example the gentle man in question was giving, but you could say the same about the issue of water problems which we have despite having all the resources, natural and human alike. The sort of blackouts we have when we actually have many untapped renewable sources of energy and supposedly the experts in the same. Yes, we tend to wonder why we do not have a well developed tourism industry when we have what it takes to turn the tide when it comes to natural resources. If you were to think that hard (maybe not that hard), you will get to discover that some of these problems  are still with us because the government, private sector, academics, media and everyone else (including bloggers) have failed to embrace and to act on the fact that a coordinated effort is needed to turn our fortunes around. We give a blind eye to the fact that to the fact that energy provision has an impact on industrialization and that food security has a bearing on education as infrastructure development and internal security do on tourism. End result? We try to sort out each one of these as something that is independent of the other. We all know the results of these unfocused efforts.

Getting it down to the personal level (I always say that the problems we have at a national level are the same as those we have at a personal level in Malawi), most of us do have this problem as we lack an insight on how different aspects of our own life interlock with others. To many, when it is time for career building, everything else suffers and such is the case when others want to prioritize social life. What we sometimes forget is that the sum of all these is what makes a complete human and that if we are to be successful (in the strict definition of the word) positive progress has to be reflected in all these areas and all of these (social, spiritual, financial, academic, etc) have to be complementing each other. Probably high time we got the likes of Pastor Aubrey Mwansinga of the combining spiritual and academic success fame to be teaching us that our academics need  “a bit of God” and the likes of Samson Fiadoh (he has recently added an “h” to the surname, I think)  to tell us the important link between social life and personal finances.

Probably one of those things we don’t pay attention to but still practice, but worth noting is the fact that the perfection of the art of integrating different parts of our life for a bigger and common goal helps one be more disciplined, increasing the likelihood of attaining one’s goals.

This is just one of those reflections. Truly random, yet food for the sober mind.

By the way, are the salaries in? That is for my friends in the civil service.

Nice weekend.