Africa-Press – Malawi. Not sure if I have missed the memo or not, but at this point, I think walking back on her planned trip would be a very wise thing to do. Or in the alternative, substantially reduce her entourage to less than half the proposed number as well cutback on her planned holiday days. At this point, it is no longer about the importance of her trip to her family. We are past that. It is about managing the optics now. It is about crawing back from a messy defeat, but very much alive to put up a fight another day.
But that is not particularly my concern in this post. A certain section of the public is: that group squarely focusing on the politics behind the leak and not the actual substance of the leaked memo itself i.e those suggesting that this would not have been avoided had the DPP swiftly purged all MCP loyalists from the system. I understand them. But I must also be quick to point out that that is also a primitive way of handling sophisticated government bussiness. Purging sabotuers should never the starting point, if at all it is to be considered, then it ought be the last. Distant last.
Blaming everything on saboteurs is primarily a failure to understand what good politics is anchored on: good sense. Logic. Not legal sense. But good sense. Good perception. Situational understanding. Legal sense comes in last to cultivate an environment where good sense reigns unfettered allowing office bearers deal with their subjects with a fair hand and in return, allowes subjects hold office bearers accountable within certain reasonable and fairly defined bounds. Nobody expects EVERYTHING from the other just about ENOUGH of that which made the existence and maintenence of their relationship necessary.
Good politics is beyond policies and actions that are developed and undertaken within legally acceptable bounds. It stretches well into that realm where those policies and actions are moraly sound and defensible too! How on earth can a 2-Billion Kwacha birthday bill on the public’s tab be morally sound and defensible in the context of such a sick economy and untold poverty around us. Bad sense! Wastage and extavagance can never be sound policy on account of the the same being done within the realm of acceptable legal bounds. Legal does not mean right! If a policy entrenches inequality instead of eliminating it then it is not right. It is bad!
Consider this.
Some weeks ago Ansah launched (or relaunched) a livelihood pass-on programme wherein families receive 2 pigs with the expectation that piglets from the initiative will be passed on to other beneficiaries. The aim? Economic development. Good policy, right? Maybe. The obvious take in light of Ansah’s costly foreign travel is this: is spending 2 BK on her hubby’s birthday a better investment as opposed to investing that amount in the livestock pass-on program being championed her ofice so that more farmers can benefit from the initiative? So that more farmers can be economically independent and self sustaining like she is? Fair basis of probe but not good enough.
A better take would be anchored on why her office is engaged in blatant tokenism distributing pigs here and there fully cognisant of the fact that 2 pigs cannot lift any family out of poverty (in the process spending more on the distribution ceremonies themselves than the actual livestock). Why is she burning billions on things that don’t really matter when that money can be used to eliminate systemic bottlenecks currently perpetuate inequality and entrenching poverty which she apparently abhors? Why is her office driven by the assumption that others (to be blunt, her husband) deserve better (2billion for a birthday) and others deserve less (2 pigs for economic independence)? Like, where is the good political sense here?
My point is this, if that leaked memo was to the effect that her office was piloting a financial service under the NEEF program and the amount in question had been be channeled towards such an initiative so that her dear farmers can easily obtain substantial loans at low interest rates, would the memo have generated these many talking ponts? I think not. The public sees the folly in the current arrangement.
Good sense withstand the test of unsound critique. Good sense is an offence and defense package unto itself. This, in my view, is an aspect that needs to be understood by these amateur politicians who have internalised the purging of saboteurs, real or imagined, as the silver bullet to all manner of political machinations. Understand this: Many times simply getting the basics right is all you need! You give your adversary no room to create damaging narratives. Tell your bosses to do what’s right, defensible, sensible and they will have nothing to worry about ever coming back to bite them!
For More News And Analysis About Malawi Follow Africa-Press
