Global Policy Forum

The report of the IMF team TEAM that visited the country recently gives serious food for thought for government. It is interesting that talks between government and the IMF centred on ghost workers and the continued travel allocations. It is interesting because there is a lot of unfinished business in terms of talks between these two institutions.

Last time, the IMF, the World Bank and other donors put pressure on the government to conclude the back log of corruption cases that they perceived as sitting idle in the court's archives.

Government still continues to dilly dally on these high profile cases and yet we now hear that the IMF and other donors have shifted their focus; they are obviously not concerned about corruption right now, but ghost workers and travel allowances. This either shows the extent of the new problem which makes the corruption in the country pale into insignificance or the IMF is relatively satisfied with the progress of the cases. We doubt that much progress has been made.

Let us examine the current intransigence of government expenditure mismanagement. We are reliably informed that it costs K6.1 million to have the president and his entourage travel from one district to another. This is common knowledge. The sad part of it, though, is that the president has viewed criticism along these lines, from newspapers, non governmental organisations and churches, as a ploy to distract him from his work.

Muluzi has even reached the extent of challenging that he will not stop his country-wide tours. In fact he has told PAC chair, Constantine Kaswaya that he has never been to his house and has never even asked for a glass of water from Kaswaya's household. We do not know if Muluzi has ever asked for a glass of water from the IMF or the British or Norwegian governments, because these donor partners seem to agree with the fact that there is an abuse of government funds in terms of the very same travel allowances are made.

If Muluzi and government were taking the criticism from the opposition parties, civil society and media, we strongly believe that aid would have been flowing like an all season river. But it is not! In fact the IMF team would not have to come to assess the performance of government, rather, it would have visited Malawi to ask government of it's future plans.

But if the donors are echoing the observations of PAC and civil society in the country, we feel this is evidence enough that, as a country, we are capable of giving alternative views to government for the betterment of the country. We are on the ground and can best advise the government on it's performance or lack of.

This trend continues to repeat itself often with government unable to listen to the people. Immediately we hear that an IMF team will be visiting Malawi, the Third Term Bill mysteriously disappears from government business in parliament. Government tries to behave as if there is nothing amiss in the country. The fact is that a similar Bill was defeated on July 4. All this was done against a backdrop of strong advice against the bill from opposition parties and civil society. However, it had to take donors, to scare government to compliance.

The scenario being painted by government is that it's number one partner is the donor community. This should not be the case, government needs to work with internal partners like the opposition and members of the civil society, including PAC. It does not make sense for government to refuse advice from opposition parties and civil society, only to accept the same advice unflinchingly, when it is offered by donors.

Seriously, we do not need donors to tell us what the right thing for Malawi to do, and the only way we can do that is for government to listen and put into practice what the opposition, civil society and all Malawians advise it to do. The best way for the president to begin is by asking himself, what is good: To have the president addressing rallies at K6.1 million each, or stay and work in the auspicious offices of Sanjika and use the money to buy food for the suffering Malawians? If government passes this test, IMF will unlock the aid flow into the country.

IMF must therefore be taken seriously, we think!

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