By Burnett Munthali
I have identified the leadership style of our President: Corrupt, incompetent, laissez-faire. Anything goes ! Free for all administration approach. You can steal public resources, I will make a speech as if I am fighting against corruption but don’t worry you won’t get prosecuted, just in case you get arrested, we will discontinue your corruption cases. Osawamvera achulewa!
Over the past four years, I have been keenly watching this leadership. The President’s leadership style is the weakest ever and leaves a lot to be desired. The current leadership will not help this nation in any way at all but steal our tax payers money, corrupt the judiciary so that some people are not prosecuted, and bulldoze bills in Parliament. Malawi is as good as a nation without a leader. Very unfortunate!
During campaign period, Chakwera spoke like a transformational leader and made people believe that he was the answer but I am sorry to say that he is not such kind of that leader he appeared to be before he went to State House.
He is a different fake leader who cannot deliver but just entertain us with his beautiful English speeches. When he speaks his English, I just feel like he must go on and on but unfortunately his speeches are empty. They are just full of nothing but rhyming words.
He simply doesn’t have a leadership approach that causes change in individuals and social systems. Malawi stands waiting for empty promises and empty speeches.
Chakwera promised to create valuable and positive change in the way he would run the affairs of government with the goal of developing this land into a better place to live. Change has indeed come to the President himself, his family and friends.
To the dismay of many Malawians the opposite is true today. Malawi has become a classroom where people keep solving simultaneous equations everyday without finding the correct answer and even the wrong answer is also very difficult to find as they continue struggling, solving everyday life challenges. Several men will die of high blood pressure as they keep trying hard to survive. If you can survive in Malawi, then you can live anywhere on this planet earth.
Tonse government is not flexible to move through a range of motion effectively unrestricted and pain free. There are so many challenges in the current government and finding solutions to improve our quality of life is a big struggle.
Corruption, selective justice, nepotism unsatisfactory performance and fake leadership are just some of our greatest challenges. Some neighboring countries are moving forward and have solved a number of issues while our leaders back home continue holding press briefings giving excuses and blaming COVID-19, natural disasters, Ukraine and Russian war. If it was in a football game I would say they keep dribbling and cannot score because they claim the ground is slippery.
Radios and television stations are were shut down by government because of whatever reasons they have. My argument, however is that MACRA is killing jobs and in so doing unemployment, crime rates and poverty levels will be on the rise. This government is not flexible. One day we are going to wake up only to find all private radio and television stations are closed except MBC the mother of all stations operating alone.
Forcing companies such as TVs and radio stations to close because of outstanding bills does not necessarily inspire people to create jobs. There is simply no inspiration but people are being demotivated each day. This government does not believe in negotiating with its people.
Chakwera does not use imagination or original ideas to create something new as he sounded to be in the beginning. Pastors are not good leaders because all they know is to be fed by their churches. They operate in an environment where there is no criticism around them. They are simply bad leaders.
His government lacks inventiveness. Companies are slowly losing business to operate under hostile economic policies.
Our leadership does not have strategic thinking skills. They are failing to use critical thinking to solve complex problems and plan for the future of this nation. Government is failing to accomplish business objectives by denying people MADEF (NEEF) loans.
The National Economic Empowerment Fund Limited (NEEF), formerly Malawi Enterprise Development Fund (MEDF) is a Government owned Microfinance Institution whose mission is to economically empower ordinary and underserved Malawians (particularly women, youth and persons with disability) through the provision of quality, affordable and sustainable microfinance services for improved livelihoods.
However the letter from State House advising those who wait there to apply for the same loan which is meant for the underprivileged is quite disturbing though not surprising when you consider how government is always handling issues.
This government is totally failing to overcome obstacles, and address economic challenges, particularly strengthening the Malawi Kwacha, it will take them years or even the whole five year term to achieve what this country is looking for but they won’t.
This leadership is not strategic. They cannot possibly identify short term, long-term or overall aims and interests of people and they cannot see any means of achieving anything.
It is the responsibility of top leadership to show this country which direction we should take in order to move forward.
Our current leadership does not have any empathy on its people. They do not have the ability to understand and share the feelings of Malawians because they are living in a luxurious life full of tax free so they have forgotten every promise made.
Leadership is unable to demonstrate concern. They lack the ability to show understanding of the economic hardships the population is going and simply have no answers.
All this leadership can have to say is, they have taken us through to Canaan, the promised land of honey and milk, things are much better now than before. This is obviously an insult ! Malawi is obviously in Bagamoyo, where there is no hope at all, the opposite direction of Canaan.
