On Leadership and Development

Another awesome Friday…

I will start this with a confession. In case you did not notice, last week’s article was dug from my  archive and it was originally posted on the 28th of August, 2015 if my memory serves me right. It is my favorite article, so I guess I will be forgiven for having reposted that without alerting people that it was an old article. Some readers noticed and questioned me on behalf of the whole readership but I guess that is just another bygone. On another note, the name “Lady Richie” that appeared in the article can be explained by the date of the original posting, so I guess we should all cut the questions about that.

I was tempted to write on a couple of hot topics that I run my head through in the past few days. The most prominent ones were the issue of the disciplinary action against some private lawyers in the country and some semi-structured chat I had with a friend of mine on sexuality. All of those are pretty interesting and I could write a lot, but then I have remembered that one guy posted a very controversial question which raised a very hot debate on Facebook.

To avoid being partisan (I am one of those non-partisan idiots who are afraid of committing to one political party), I will reconstruct the whole post in my own words. This guy asked people to mention any major developments that have taken place ever since we re-ushered the blue administration into the driving seat in Malawi.  That question got my mind stalled for a moment and that was not only because I had no immediate answer but rather because no one had asked it 3 years after we had voted. The answers? Many said there was no major development while someone else ignited a hot debate by saying that one major development that has taken place was the construction of community colleges across the country. I know that some of you have already figured out as to where the debate came from, but if you haven’t yet it came from the question as to whether community colleges are a major development. Now that is one question to which even the all-wise Richie of Richie Online does not have an answer to. All in all, I think I have personally seen some roads being fixed and have heard of some community colleges being constructed. I will leave the judging as to whether those are major developments to the readers.

While I applauded the guy who asked this question about what has transpired since we voted for a new party into power, I was quickly drifted into wondering as to where the opposition (which was supposed to be asking these sorta questions as opposed to appearing only and only after these not so cool SONAs) has been all along. On the other hand, the very fact that the opposition has to be asking these questions means that we have been reduced to a country that has no development agenda. That entails that we have people from different political parties coming in with their ideas on how best we can develop this country with no long term development plan or consideration of continuity beyond a five year term in place. If that does not break your heart, then I would guess you are a typical Malawian who is part of the problem as opposed to the (possible) solution.

Talking of development, I must say that what I have seen in the few years I have been around has been more of maintenance of already existing structures and systems than erecting new ones. That in itself is a big problem as it is not in keeping with the increased demand for new structures and systems that we get from the ever-increasing population.
The lack of a proper and visionary development agenda has also led us into introducing things that we cannot sustain. I tend to wonder whether we thought we would be able to sustain a free healthcare system, free primary education and farm input subsidies going forward. I am not too sure of whether these things are being sustainable by every definition of the word, but I think our think tanks could have done a better job by not introducing some of these if not for altering the way they are rolled out.

Having said that, I will turn away from those we call atsogoleri a dziko or whatever and look at you, my dear readers. Some of you have been given the responsibility to lead in different platforms. True leadership entails innovation as opposed to maintenance of operations. Our measure of leadership shouldn’t be how many things have been maintained but rather how many new things are introduced in a particular leadership mandate.

Going back to the issue of whether the blue camp has developed the country enough in the three years, I will throw that back to you. If you are in opposition, it is your job to police the government on these matters and if you are in the “informal gaffment” it’s your job to reason with your bosses on the need for a long term and non-partisan development agenda which cannot be discontinued simply because the background of the presidential portrait has changed from orange to blue.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Alipo akukwatira kapena kukwatiwa weekend you ngati?