Early last year, at the inception of the Covid-19 pandemic, Malawi was also battling for democracy. When Lazarus Chakwera became President in June, his win was hailed as a victory for democracy and justice. Born in Lilongwe to a subsistence farmer, the philosophy and theology graduate leads a nine-party coalition, the Tonse Alliance. He spoke to FORBES AFRICA in this exclusive interview about taking on the reins during the pandemic and his plans for the country’s future.



Q. What has changed in the few months you have been in office in the midst of a pandemic? 



A. My first week when I came into office was to change the direction of our country. Ours had been a country deeply entrenched in systematic corruption, greed, nepotism, executive arrogance, and economic atrocities committed by a huge cartel of state criminals. That’s why we are talking of changing direction for this sinking ship. That change of direction is embedded in my administration’s Super Hi5 Agenda, which is a blueprint for the plan to transform our country’s approach to governance. The tenets of this agenda are servant leadership, uniting Malawians, prospering together, ending corruption, and the rule of law. To execute this agenda, we have put together a formidable team of cabinet members committed to the renewal of Malawi, close to 40% of who are women.



Q. How have you managed to deal with the health and economic ramifications of the pandemic so soon into your new role?



A. The Covid-19 pandemic is such a colossal challenge that requires a complex cocktail of both domestic and international interventions. At a local level, we have focused on supporting our fragile health system in its provision of care for Covid-19 patients, campaigning vigorously with messages for preventive behaviors across our society, monitoring the inflow of travelers across our points of entry from Covid-hit countries, setting up a robust nationwide infrastructure for testing suspected cases, and curating innovative ways to support economic activity and income security for the most vulnerable of our people. At an international level, we have worked relentlessly to forge partnerships with other nations and international corporations to scale up and fast-track our access to and mobilization of funds, expertise, and medical supplies for our fight against Covid-19. In my capacity as President, I have also used my addresses at various global fora to call for a wide range of interventions for countries like mine, including debt cancellation and favorable terms for the movement of supplies and goods we need to sustain our fight and our economy.



Q. What initiatives do you plan to undertake in your first year in office?



A. We have no time to waste, which is why we hit the ground running. We have embarked on reforms in all the departments of government, a high priority initiative housed within the Presidency through the Office of the Vice President. Secondly, we have engaged to stimulate our economy towards both our job creation and economic productivity agendas, including the passing of a budget that delivers on our key economic promises. Thirdly, we have implemented the Affordable Inputs Program that will revolutionize the agricultural sector and guarantee food security for our rural masses. Fourthly, we have strengthened both the judiciary and law-enforcement agencies with sufficient funding and autonomy to uphold the rule of law without political interference, which now makes Malawi a stable environment for foreign direct investments. Fifthly, I have rolled out an ambitious and necessary Climate Change Agenda, which includes the inauguration of a National Clean-Up Day.



Q. Africa is one of the youngest continents, how do you plan on involving more youth in government?



A. Malawi’s population now stands at 17.5 million, of which 75% are youth and 51% are women. This means that empowering youth and women is the key to unlocking the economic potential of Malawi as a whole. To achieve this, my administration is launching the National Youth Service which I promised before taking office. In the short term though, we are training youth in business, vocational, livelihood, and technical skills. We are providing startup tools and equipment and linking the youth to financial lending institutions to commodify their innovations.



We have also embarked on a nationwide project to rehabilitate existing youth centers, build new sports centers, including the National Netball Complex and a Sports Academy. Principally, my administration intends to ensure that services rendered to young people are designed with input from young people, which is why within the first two months of my administration, I held a Youth Summit to get the best ideas from young people for implementation at the highest level.



Q. What are your plans in turning Malawi into an economic hub like South Africa or Nigeria?



A. The success of Malawi’s economy, going forward, will be anchored on a solid institutional foundation, a thriving private sector, and an environment that is conducive to foreign investment, youth and women empowerment, and zero tolerance to corruption. We will continuously carry out public sector reforms in order to achieve these goals.



Q. You have put the fight against corruption at the top of the agenda. How are you dealing with it?



A. In the first place, my administration is equipping and resourcing the arms and institutions leading the fight against corruption to ensure their autonomy, including the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the judiciary, the police service, and others. You will see that reflected in the recent funding allocations in the national budget that we presented and approved by the National Assembly. To complement these institutional efforts, I have made it my business to position my administration to lead by example in the handling of public resources, demanding that all members of my cabinet declare their assets.



Q. How will you ensure that individuals who plundered government resources are prosecuted?



A. By promoting the independence of bodies constitutionally mandated to prosecute suspects of corruption and holding those at the helm of those bodies to public scrutiny and account.



Q. There are so many expectations by Malawians that your presidency will solve almost all challenges. This could be a tall order. How do you plan not to lose the trust of the citizens?



A. Public trust is lost through lack of integrity, lack of service, lack of empathy, and lack of accountability. I plan to stay in front of these landmines by avoiding and removing anything that has the potential to foster such.



Q. What initiatives or changes will you bring to the health system of Malawi and when do you expect them to be implemented?



A. My administration’s vision for the health sector is to give all Malawians access to quality, equitable, and affordable healthcare through the Universal Health Coverage. The following key interventions will be of focus in our approach: Scaling up the provision of sexual and reproductive health services, we have a goal to eliminate AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. My administration is implementing a National Strategic Plan for the HIV response, which aims at 95-95-95 coverage targets for diagnosis, treatment, and viral suppression by 2025. We are eradicating all forms of malnutrition and as a step towards that, 76 nutritionists across the country have been trained and employed to lead the efforts. Another one of my administration’s most daring goals is the eradication of Malaria, and we will soon be launching the ‘Zero Malaria Campaign’’ to support community awareness. We are strengthening Community Health Infrastructure by constructing more health posts as we work towards our long- term goal to put health services within walking distance of every Malawian.



Q. What final message would you have for Malawians and Africans across the world?



A. We can achieve more together than apart, but to work together, we must have the courage to see the things that unite us, not the things that divide us.

MALAWI-VOTE

‘Empowering Women And Youth Key To Unlocking Malawi’s Economic Potential’

It’s 5AM in the northern hills of Malawi where its tobacco is grown. Chifundo Ndilowe is awake and ready for the day. Dressed in grey shorts and a blue NBA vest, still filthy from yesterday’s long day on the farm, Ndilowe has hours of hard labor ahead. He is just 15 years old and has been planting and picking tobacco since he was 10.
“I came here in 2011 because rural life is hard. We were battling at home and I had to start contributing for us to survive. I stopped going to school to work. It is very tough working under these conditions because it is hot and we easily get tired and I am often sick,” he says.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5473" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_5988-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Ndilowe moved 567 kilometers from Mulanje to Mpherembe, 300 kilometers north of Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, to work in a tobacco farm five years ago. It means long hours, missing school and breaking the law for little pay. He earns a little more than $140 and $280 a year depending on the harvest.  That’s less than $1 a day.
“We work for the year and only get paid after harvest. During the year, we get 20 kilograms of maize for 12 days because we don’t grow crops for consumption. They also give us salt and then we have to figure out the rest ourselves. I get to eat once a day and I take whatever is there,” he says.
Ndilowe is just one of an estimated 800,000 youngsters in the tobacco fields; voices that are seldom heard. One of an army of children who sweat for millions of cigarettes lit all over Africa.
A study on child labor in the tobacco industry in two areas of Malawi, Suza in the Kasungu district and Katalima in the Dowa district, found 57% of all children were being used as child labour in the tobacco fields.
George Kube, an adult tobacco worker, works with Ndilowe and two other children.
“There is no money for the children to go to school and if they don’t work to help we wouldn’t survive. We farm on two acres of land and the produce is auctioned to tobacco companies. You have to be very strong if you are going to do this job because sometimes we have to cut down trees and look for water,” says Kube.
&nbsp;
A study, published by the British Medical Association, says contract farmers, like Kube and Ndilowe, cultivating tobacco in Malawi, live below national poverty lines, while independent farmers operate at a loss.
“Even when labor is excluded from the calculation of income less costs, farmers’ gross margins place most households in the bottom income [groups] of the overall population. Tobacco farmers appear to contract principally as a means to obtain credit, which is consistently reported to be difficult to obtain,” says the study.
Tobacco farmers may struggle to make a living but tobacco manufacturers thrive. The world tobacco industry is worth billions of dollars. Cigarette retail values in 2014 were worth $744 billion and over 5.6 trillion cigarettes were sold to more than one billion smokers according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. But, very few farmers make money from it.
The market is controlled by a few international companies; China National Tobacco Corporation, Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Brands. They buy tobacco from cheap emerging markets, like Malawi, for profit.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5476" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_188476175-300x122.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="122" />
For years, governments around the world have been trying to clamp down on smoking because of its health implications, through stringent laws and higher taxes, yet tobacco use is increasing in some countries, says Zambian economist Grieve Chelwa.
“African incomes have been rising over the last couple of years and we know that tobacco consumption responds to rising incomes. Further, tobacco companies have put in place strategies (subtle advertising) to take advantage of rising incomes.”
And they flourish.
This year, British American Tobacco (BAT) announced its revenue went up 8.1% at constant rates of exchange, cigarette volume from subsidiaries was 497 billion, up by 2.2%, cigarette market share in key markets increased by 40 basis points and its brands performed exceptionally well with cigarette volume up 9.8% year ending September 30.
BAT plans to merge with its US partner R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the company behind the famous camel cigarette brand, in a deal valued at $47 billion. It hopes to create a stronger global presence and move into new ventures like e-cigarettes.
<div id="attachment_5471" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5471" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-5471" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Grieve_Chelwa_picture-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" />Grieve Chelwa</div>
In its third quarter, Philip Morris International reported net revenues of $19.9 billion, up by 2.6%, net revenues, excluding excise taxes, of $7 billion, up by 0.8%, operating income of $3 billion, up by 0.6%, and operating company’s income of $3.1 billion, up by 1.2%. In Africa, companies thrive because of weak regulation.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has a 75% benchmark of tax on the retail price, yet the African average is way below. Nigeria taxes cigarettes at only 20% of the retail price. Chelwa says ideally increasing taxes to reduce tobacco use should work anywhere because of the law of demand, increasing price reduces demand.
“But, the important point is the increases have to be real-inflation adjusted increments,” he says.
In Africa, high tobacco taxes are rare. WHO says only 33 countries, with 10% of the world’s population, have introduced taxes on tobacco products of more than 75%. Tobacco tax revenues are on average 269 times higher than spending on tobacco control.
Tobacco companies are also good at finding new markets, with new smokers and weak regulations. According to an article published by The Lancet, a UK medical journal, tobacco use is declining in higher income countries, but nearly 80% of the world’s smokers live in low and middle income countries.
“Tobacco control regulations are not strong across most of the continent. Countries have ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) but that’s all they have done. And sadly the tobacco industry is an important player in the setting of tobacco control policy in most African countries,” says Chelwa.
For years, tobacco companies argue they market merely to convince smokers to switch brands, but evidence published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information shows advertising drives smoking.
<div id="attachment_5483" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5483" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-5483" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Christo-van-Staden-142-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Christo Van Staden</div>
According to a WHO study, smoking has increased in 27 countries over the past 15 years. Seventeen of these are in Africa. In Cameroon, smokers more than doubled from 7% in 2000 to 22% last year. Congo-Brazzaville has seen the biggest spike. Nearly half of Congolese men smoke. Last year, 22% of its people admitted to smoking regularly, up from 6% in 2000.
“Only 42 countries, representing 19% of the world’s population, meet the best practice for pictorial warnings, which includes the warnings in the local language and cover an average of at least half of the front and back of cigarette packs,” says WHO.
In South Africa, cigarette advertising is banned. There are also restrictions on point of sale product display, vending machines and sponsorship of events, activities, individuals, organizations or governments. Now, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has pledged to take it further by strengthening the Tobacco Products Control Act.
Motsoaledi says there should be no branding, no logos and no colors on cigarettes to discourage smoking. If the law is introduced, all cigarettes will be in a brown package with graphics that show the damage they can cause.
This is worrying for the tobacco industry. Christo van Staden heads the only primary tobacco processing factory in South Africa, Limpopo Tobacco Processors, that processes 12 million kilograms of tobacco. He says the effects could be catastrophic.
“The biggest impact [of tougher regulations] is the increase in illicit cigarettes which is a huge dent in the business of BAT and in the whole market. About 20 to 30 percent of cigarettes in Gauteng are illicit and they are paid way below the price,” he says.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5477" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_260271650-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
As we meet, in Rustenburg, a two-hour drive from Johannesburg, Van Staden’s farmers have lost 30 hectors of tobacco to a passing storm. On this day, the sun blazes down from a cloudless azure sky. A sprinkler keeps the glossy lawns and flowers alive. Inside the factory, it is dark and you can hear a pin drop. The silence is almost tangible. There is no bustle and machines that usually crackle stand still. It is not tobacco season. All employees are upstairs in the offices working. Dressed in khaki shorts and shirt, Van Staden says tobacco farming is hard.
“For every hector, you need two people to work there and pick it by hand, it is very expensive. One hector costs about R130,000 ($9,500) to plant and the farmer needs to make at least 20 to 25 percent profit. Last year was a very tough year. There were very tough conditions and an average farmer did not make any profit at all.”
“Now they are supporting the local market but if they don’t get any benefit out of that, they have to compete with everyone else in plain packaging, then there is no reason for them to buy South African tobacco, they will literally walk out of here overnight and source their product from Brazil, India and China where they can buy a lot cheaper. We are not ready for that. We would close these doors,” he says.
For Van Staden, closing doors means 10,000 farmers lose their income. He thinks there should be more education about the dangers of tobacco and efforts to keep youngsters away from smoking.
“I am a non-smoker and will not advise anyone to smoke. Most of my staff members don’t smoke. Unfortunately, people smoke everyday but see the warning on the packets and turn a blind eye.  Because it’s such an unhealthy product, the governments around the world will try and eradicate it but I don’t think it will happen in the next 20 years. There are laws in this country that allow people to smoke and to close down the primary sector is not going to stop smoking overnight,” adds Van Staden.
South Africa will follow the UK, Ireland, Australia and France in banning branded packaging.
&nbsp;
In Uganda, 4,800 kilometers from South Africa, it’s even tougher. If you light up in bars, restaurants or hotels, you will be fined $60 or jailed for up to two months. Smokers must be at least 50 meters away from public spaces, such as schools, hospitals and taxi ranks.
Uganda’s new laws also ban the sale of electronic cigarettes, flavored tobacco for water pipes, the sale of single cigarettes and tightened rules on labeling, advertising and selling tobacco to under-21s.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5472" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_5987-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“We are strongly opposed to plain packing as we feel that there hasn’t been enough consultation and research on it. Our concern is the serious adverse consequences that it will have on the economy, jobs and investment; as well as potentially making counterfeit easier. It trounces fundamental intellectual property rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution,” says Joe Heshu, Acting Head of External Affairs at BAT.
According to Heshu, counterfeit cigarettes are a bigger issue. In 2015, South Africa’s Treasury lost R5.1 billion ($373 million) due to illicit trade. The trade accounts for about 24% of the market.
South Africa has been increasing tobacco taxes since 1994 and the big impact has been the reduction in consumption and prevalence, but Chelwa agrees there has been a minimal impact of the taxes on illicit trade.
“Illicit trade often has to do with tax administration and not taxes. Even if taxes were a cent, you’d still have illicit trade showing that it is not a tax level or tax rate issue but a tax administration issue,” he says.
On jobs, Chelwa argues “there are very few tobacco manufacturing jobs, very few given how mechanized manufacturing of cigarettes is.”
The big worry he says is in the field.
“Governments have to consciously find ways of transitioning tobacco farmers into growing other types of crops. This will require a lot of work,” says Chelwa.
Asked if he thinks cigarettes are killers, Heshu argues his company has launched e-cigarettes, which are supposedly less harmful products, in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland.
“We are committed to the research and development of Next Generation Products (NGPs) and globally have invested over half a billion pounds during the past five years. There is a growing body of evidence that NGPs do pose significantly fewer risks than cigarettes.”
For now, tobacco companies continue to thrive. Only 29 countries, representing 12% of the world’s population, have completely banned all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, according to WHO.
Some of Malawi’s tobacco, grown by the likes of Ndilowe and Kube, is shipped 2,000 kilometers south of Mpherembe. In South Africa, 19% of the population, over the age of 15, smokes according to the World Bank. That’s almost one in five people and it is dangerous.
Tobacco is responsible for six million deaths each year. Of those, 600,000 die from the effects of second-hand smoke. This number is expected to increase to eight million by 2030 if current trends continue, says WHO.
Alexandra chain smoker, Mpho Ndlovu, knows this, yet he goes through three packs of cigarettes a day.
“I have been smoking since I was 15. It started as just playing with friends at school because we knew we weren’t allowed to. It was a way of being cool. I got hooked and have been smoking for 40 years,” says Ndlovu.
What started as a game became a habit and then an addiction.
“Smoking helps me when I’m nervous and I just enjoy it. I have tried to stop many times but have failed. I know this might one day kill me but, at this point, there is nothing I can do.”
Ndlovu spends R110.50 ($8) per day on cigarettes. That’s R766.50 ($56) per week and R3,066 ($225) per month and R36,792 ($2,700) per year and R183,960 ($13,500) in five years. If he continues smoking the same number of cigarettes per day for another 40 years, at this current price, he will spend around $100,000 on cigarettes. If invested, he could buy a house.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5474" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_117380326-114x300.jpg" alt="" width="114" height="300" />
Ndlovu spends close to half of his R7,000 ($500) salary he makes working as a driver for a logistics company in Sandton.
“By the last week of the month, I would be out of money and sometimes I have to ask people if I can borrow or take some on credit from the spaza shop,” he says.
“When I smoke, especially on weekends, I drink as well. So the money I earn is never enough. My children get angry because they think I should be using the money on them. I don’t know how to stop.”
Ndlovu buys his cigarettes from Ntando Debeza, a hundred metres from his home.
Debeza’s spaza shop sells cigarettes, pipe tobacco, snuff, chewing tobacco, hookah and shisha.
“I make about R6,000 ($440)  a month from this small shop. Most of the money comes from tobacco sales but I also sell other day-to-day products like bread and milk. People come to buy and sometimes on credit and I collect money at the end of the month,” says Debeza.
This means Ndlovu’s debt grows. But, that’s not all. Smoking does not only affect the smoker. High levels of nicotine exposure from handling tobacco leaves may cause nicotine poisoning called Green Tobacco Sickness, with symptoms including nausea and vomiting.
Back in Mpherembe in Malawi, Kube says he is aware of the dangers of working in a tobacco field without protective clothing, and mostly its effects on minors. “I know children can get sick but what can we do? We need a lot of hands on the farm because this isn’t an easy crop to plant and prepare. It needs three times more people than corn but we don’t make enough money at all,” says Kube.
He is one of the few rural farmers who know this. And it gets worse. A 2009 survey in China revealed that only 38% of smokers knew that smoking causes coronary heart disease and only 27% knew that it can cause strokes.
“Among smokers who are aware of the dangers of tobacco, most want to quit. Counseling and medication can more than double the chance that a smoker who tries to quit will succeed. National comprehensive cessation services with full or partial cost coverage are available to assist tobacco users to quit in only 24 countries, representing 15% of the world’s population,” says WHO.
Cape Town-based entrepreneur Gareth Carter saw this crisis as an opportunity. He founded WeDoRecover, a company that helps patients who suffer from psychiatric and addiction problems.
“Finding the right addiction program to meet someone’s specific needs is a complex process. The crisis and chaos synonymous with active addiction are overwhelming and the multitude of choices in the marketplace adds to the confusion,” says Carter.
According to Carter, people who smoke are more likely to drink alcohol and vice versa. He says alcoholics frequently present with a co-morbid nicotine addiction.
“As many as 80 percent of people addicted to alcohol and other drugs are frequent smokers, but the bulk will die of smoking-related disease rather than alcohol and drug-related disease…”
The damage doesn’t stop there. Carter adds that major depressive episodes among adults are highest in those addicted to nicotine and lowest in those who have quit or never started smoking.
“With nearly 80 percent of the world’s one billion smokers living in low- and middle-income countries, this is a very real public health care problem for us in Africa. Making nicotine addiction prevention and treatment readily accessible to the youth counteracts a wide range of potential mental, physical and mood-disorder problems with far-reaching ramifications to families, communities and our economy,” he says.
Carter thinks if tobacco was “invented” today it would be classed with other illegal drugs. That’s not the case. The lucrative industry in Africa puffs on unfettered.

The Price  Of Puff

When I ask petite Memory Banda whether she is married, her answer is an emphatic “No!”
It’s a loaded question for Banda who has spent the past few years of her young life campaigning against child marriage in Malawi. She has come to the Social Good Summit in New York in September to talk about Girls Empowerment Network Malawi (Genet) and Let Girls Lead, the organizations she works tirelessly for to stop child marriage in Malawi and beyond.
But she doesn’t have long to talk to me: She’s about to meet First Lady Michelle Obama, which she’s really excited about.
“Of course I have intentions to get married one day,” a vivacious Banda, who is almost 20, tells me. “But only when I’m done with school.” She’s keen to talk too about the career in communications – or possibly law – that she’s hoping to pursue but her current mission is more pressing: to stop child marriage in Malawi, a country with one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world.
Although the situation has improved there, with the banning of the practice in February last year, it is still commonplace for Malawian girls to marry very young. The legal marrying age is now 18, but with their parents’ consent, they can still marry as young as 15. Banda’s own sister was married at 11 to a man in his 30s and she now has several children. Some of her cousins too are in a similar predicament. And despite the legislation, child marriage continues – if under the radar.
“When I saw my peers, I was not impressed with the life they were living,” says Banda. She knew from the outset that she wanted a different path for herself and for other girls in her country and on the continent.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-32025 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Memory-with-member-of-parliament-2015webready-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Memory-with-member-of-parliament-2015webready.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Memory-with-member-of-parliament-2015webready-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Memory-with-member-of-parliament-2015webready-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Memory-with-member-of-parliament-2015webready-768x511.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
Central to child marriage is the brutal traditional practice of kusasa fumbi, which takes place in southern Malawi. This involves the sexual initiation of young girls at a special initiation camp in their village by an older man known as a “hyena”. The man has sex with them and teaches them how to pleasure their future husbands.
“Of course, it’s not his or her first time. And little is known about him. He could be infected with HIV,” says Banda. This practice robs the young girls of their childhood. When they come out, they soon get pregnant or married,” she says.
It’s no surprise that Malawi has one of the highest rates of maternal deaths in the world. What’s more, 10% of the population is HIV-positive.
But thanks to the efforts of Banda and the advocacy organizations behind her, the new legislation was passed. Other steps have also been taken to spread the message and change attitudes. Much work has been done with rural chiefs to put a stop to the kusasa fumbi tradition as well as child marriage.
Several years ago, over 200 girls who were trained in the Chiradzulu District of southern Malawi to persuade 60 village chiefs to make and enforce by-laws to protect girls from early marriage and sexual initiation. Now men who marry girls under the age of 21 must pay penalties to the chiefs in the form of goats or their land. Parents who allow or promote marriage of their under-age daughters are also penalized.
So far the efforts of Banda and her colleagues have largely paid off.
“Two or three years ago it was really bad. But there has been a lot of change in different communities,” she says.
Now, initiation camps have become a “positive” educational experience, where no “sexual cleansing” takes place and where girls learn about their bodies.
It’s no surprise that economic drivers are often behind the choice of young girls – or their parents – for early marriage.
“When you encourage girls to stand on their own they will ask you, ‘but where will I get the money?’ says Banda. “But I grew up with nothing. Still, I was able to move out,” she says. “I challenge that thinking and I encourage them to think not just of now but of the future.”

IMG_2019

Malawi’s Other Banda

It is just over 20 years since I journeyed to Blantyre to see a rare sight on this continent – a former head of state on trial before his own people.
The trial opened on a crisp winter’s morning, in the shadow of Mount Soche, at the High Court in Blantyre. At sundown you can watch clouds roll down the slopes of Mount Soche like a huge fluffy blanket – the people of Blantyre call it the ‘chip’ – one of the great sights of Africa.
The only thing in danger of going down on this winter’s morning, in 1995, was the remnants of a regime that had ruled Malawi for decades.
Hastings Kamuzu Banda was to stand trial for the Mwanza incident on May 18, 1983, even though he never made it to court as his lawyers deemed him too infirm.
Police caught four leading politicians, who were trying to flee Malawi, at Mwanza near the border with Tanzania. They pounded them to death with sledgehammers, put them back into their car and pushed it over a cliff to make it look like an accident. The vehicle caught on a tree and the only damage investigators found was a broken indicator light. The former president, his right hand man, John Tembo, and Cecilia Kadzamira, were charged with the killings.
Banda was one of Africa’s notorious big men – although, like most, he wasn’t very tall – who ruled with a lion’s tail fly-whisk in one hand with the other clenched in an iron fist. Under his homburg hat and three-piece English style suits, he saw himself as above his people and, like the British colonialists before him, believed his word was law. Women couldn’t wear short skirts; men with long hair and beards were shorn of their offending locks at the airport. The Jehovah’s Witnesses were killed, imprisoned and exiled, according to human rights reports.
Criticism was unwelcome, to say the least. Everyone, from journalists to poets, could be locked up without trial. In 1987, Goodluck Mhango, a veterinarian who had nothing to do with politics, was imprisoned merely because his journalist brother overseas had written an article criticizing the government. He was beaten up severely and spent more than four years behind bars.
One journalist I interviewed in Blantyre was held for more than 20 years in a cell that used to flood in the rainy season. He was diabetic and the paucity of prison food worsened this into glaucoma, sending him blind. Twenty years later, I interviewed him in freedom in his glorious garden in Blantyre that he could hear, smell, but not see. He recounted the story that got him in trouble about the former nurse from Zimbabwe, Kadzamira, who was Banda’s companion and on the state house payroll as an official hostess.
“All I did was question what an official hostess was,” says the former journalist with a smile.
I nodded my head in sympathy and wondered how difficult a letter from the editor, or a right of reply, was for the high and mighty to comprehend.
All of this madness in a country, now known as the warm heart of Africa, then known as the land where silence rules.
This silence was breaking when I first arrived in Malawi to report in January 1995, months after Banda lost elections to President Bakili Muluzi. On the way from the airport, I engaged the taxi driver in political talk – a practise a lot of journalists carry out when they hit the ground running. As we talked, he told me in Banda’s day it was difficult to start a taxi business.
“In those days, the police would be at your house asking where you got the foreign currency from to import the vehicle. In fact, if you wanted to talk politics I would have dropped you off at the side of the road!” says the driver as we hurtled into the city.
Banda, Kadzamira and Tembo were acquitted for lack of evidence. Banda died at home in bed in 1997. At least we were free to report the stories, even though, I am told, Malawi has veered back towards its cold and silent past.

The Cold Silent Heart Of Africa

Kuantan, Malaysia, seems a long way from the translucent dusk and rich red earth of peaceful Malawi. Standing in the heart of an ancient swamp the daylight is fading to an impenetrable gloom. Seeping through my toes in the dusk is brackish black peat water.
If it wasn’t for the stifling humidity and the call of a fish eagle over the pristine distant forest I could be in a stinking bog in the Scottish Hebrides. To the north of the ‘Black Jewel’ forests of southern Malaysia, where I stand, the brilliant LED lights of a remote state of the art refinery glow through the Asian night.
Over its metal ramparts, migrant Malaysian workers scurry over scaffolding like ants. They are part of a race that is seeing the world’s biggest mining and technology companies scour the ends of the earth to break China’s stranglehold on rare earths – a band of obscure but increasingly strategic metals integral to our technological world.
Today, this dank and rather obscure corner of Malaysia represents the new frontier for refining rare earths – a group of 17 largely similar metallic-chemical elements used in products from smartphones and televisions to hybrid-car batteries. This plant has been built to refine ore from the Mount Weld mine deep in the Australian desert, 2,500 miles away.
Inside these humble rocks from the outback are rare-earth minerals, crucial ingredients for smartphones, as well as wind turbines, hybrid cars, and night-vision goggles. Minerals such as neodymium are used in magnets that make phone and laptop speakers vibrate to create sound. Or europium, a phosphor that creates the bright red on an iPhone screen. Let’s not forget cerium which makes our perfect metal smartphones shiny and new as they move along the assembly line.
The Malaysian refinery’s backers, Lynas, believe they will eventually be able to meet nearly a third of the world’s demand for rare earth materials here. Most crucially, Kuantan’s refinery is the first rare earth ore processing plant to be built outside China in nearly three decades.
It’s arrival, and the decision by China to scrap its quota system restricting exports of rare earth minerals after losing a World Trade Organization case, could also signal Africa’s entry into the burgeoning market. Lynas believe they are backing a clear winner as the global demand for technology reaches new heights. Yet it is a venture not without risk. Historically, rare earths have proven tricky to process.
As Malaysia learned the hard way a few decades ago, refining rare earth ore usually leaves thousands of tons of low-level radioactive waste behind. As a consequence the west has largely left the dirty work to Chinese refineries. The world’s reluctance to process rare earths has meant that China now mines and refines at least 90% of the global supply – allowing Beijing a virtual monopoly that has handed them a global trade weapon in an increasingly high-tech world.
Last September, China imposed a two-month embargo on rare earth shipments to Japan during a territorial dispute, and for a short time even blocked some shipments to the United States and Europe. It’s an environmental and economic backstory that does much to explain Lynas’ $230-million investment into the world’s most advanced rare earth refinery but one that also concerns environmentalists.
Critics of the Lynas plant claim it will generate 28,000 tons of solid waste containing radioactive by-products annually. The most controversial element in the waste cocktail, claim Greenpeace and local campaigners, is thorium, a mildly radioactive element that is toxic in large doses and easily spread through wind and water. Exposure to thorium is tied to increased risk of cancer. Although the sprawling plant is located on the Gebeng industrial estate, about 30,000 people live within a two-kilometer radius and 700,000 reside within 25 kilometers of the refinery.
Lynas claim that the final waste material will have levels of radioactivity low enough to allow it to be transported overseas. A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also assessed the Kuantan plant and judged it to meet all safety standards.
Here, along the Andaman coast, the debate ploughs on. In many ways it feels like I have been here before. In 2006, I, like many other correspondents, obsessed over coltan, traveling across Goma and Kivu as rebel groups stationed throughout the eastern Democratic Republic Congo waged war on both one another and the government over that most pliable of soft metals – coltan – placing bonded slaves and kidnapped children into the supply chains of major electronic firms who sought it.
Coltan’s value, like rare earths, was, at the time, hard to understand. Short for columbite-tantalite, it is an ore that takes on heat-resistant properties when it gets refined. It’s also capable of holding a high electrical charge for a long time. Both characteristics make it an ideal component in circuitry design, particularly in smartphones and other electronic devices, which constantly need to improve battery life.
For NGO’s coltan was the poster boy of the so-called 3TGs: tantalum (coltan), tin, tungsten and gold, all used extensively in the electronics industry. To many within the electronics industry, coltan and other conflict minerals is an old narrative. But the truth is Africa’s entanglement with potentially damaging technology minerals might actually just be beginning.
Our obsession with technology means our need for rare earths can only grow exponentially. Today, geologists also believe Africa has more than half the world’s deposits of carbonatites, the type of rock formation seen as the prime hunting ground for rare earths.
Another advantage Africa, in particular South Africa, offers is vast amounts of monazite sands left over from other mining operations from which rare earths can be extracted. The Great Western Minerals Group’s Steenkampskraal project in South Africa, for example, has some of the highest concentrations of certain types of rare earths of any mine outside of China.
Perhaps surprisingly, given its relative low-profile in the mining sector, the most promising site on the continent is the Kangankunde Hill region of Malawi. According to the US Geological Survey and Lynas, who have interests in the southern African nation, the potential is significant.
According to Will Dawes, Chief Executive Officer of Canadian company Mkango Resources, Malawi could become Africa’s largest rare earth producer.
“Malawi ticks the boxes in terms of resource potential, a stable political environment, infrastructure and government support,” he says.
Dawes believes there are at least five potential major rare earth mines in Malawi, of which Mkango’s Songwe Hill project is the most advanced. It is undeniably a factor that could transform one of Africa’s most historically weak economies but also bring considerable environmental concerns.
As with processing rare earths, extracting individual elements from the host mineral’s chemistry is a complex and energy-intensive process, involving strong acids and other hazardous chemicals. Radioactive materials such as uranium and thorium are often found alongside rare earth elements, and these can end up in the ‘tailings’ – a toxic stew of waste products from the refinement process.
Rare earths must be separated and purified using hydro-metallurgical techniques and acid baths. As a consequence, the foul waters contain radioactive elements which, if ingested, cause cancers of the pancreas and lungs and leukemia. But, with Malawi’s mining promise comes a lead lining to their economic cloud at least.
As a consequence of rare earths’ troubled history, major corporations like Siemens, Samsung and Toyota are already designing new products that use fewer rare earths or substitute materials.
It is also predicted that recycle rates of rare earths from existing products, very low because of the expense and complexity involved, may also increase in future. Honda, for example, has already begun extracting more than 80% of its rare earth materials from nickel-metal hydride batteries.
Julian Kirby, lead campaigner for Friends of the Earth’s Make It Better initiative, which aims to make companies come clean about their supply chains, is adamant that “environmental costs must be factored into the prices of rare earths”, creating an incentive to recycle existing materials. Kirby also believes there should be a change in reporting by major firms to ensure it includes non-financial information. Only then, he claims, will electronics manufacturers take greater responsibility.
In Malaysia, rare earth refining on their doorstep has split public opinion.
To date, more than 1.2 million people signed a petition calling for Lynas to close its plant and thousands have taken to the streets to express their opposition to the rare earth refinery operating the country. The presence of the facility has sparked one of the biggest environmental movements in Malaysian history. According to one local campaigner in Kuantan, China’s loss of its rare earth monopoly will also prove a loss for the rest of the world, including Africa, as the floodgates open on a toxic trade.

Rare Pollution  And Profit

Joyce Banda is wearing a cheerful fuchsia-pink chitenge (African dress), but looks tired.
We meet her in a Johannesburg hotel, where she has been staying on the return leg of her six-week trip – the longest she has been away from Africa – to the United States (US).
“The last few weeks have been hectic,” says Banda, Malawi’s former president and Africa’s second female head of state.
In the US, she had been rubbing shoulders with Hillary Clinton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, garnering support for the Joyce Banda Foundation, which she has been running on behalf of the women and children of Malawi for the last 16 years. In Johannesburg, she also met with Graça Machel, wife of the late Nelson Mandela, to discuss a maternal and child health program.
Back home, it was an equally hectic few months. In a year Malawi is celebrating 50 years of independence, the international press scrutinized it over a high-level graft scandal and chaotic elections.
Banda left Malawi a month after her country’s closely-contested – and controversial – May elections, which saw her and her People’s Party lose to Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Banda was president of the tiny aid-dependent southern African country – among the world’s poorest – for a brief two years, following the death in office of her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika, the brother of the new president.
“I came into office at a very difficult time. The economy had almost collapsed, but in 24 months, I was able to turn [it] around,” says Banda.
Banda says Malawi’s economy grew from 1.8% in 2012 to 6.2% in 2014. She started well, winning accolades from the West for her economic reform plan and austerity measures, including the IMF-backed devaluation of the kwacha.
“What gives me pride is I left Malawi a better place than when I found it. When I came… we didn’t have fuel for a day, companies were scaling down… I had to work very quickly… By the time I was leaving statehouse, we had a harvest of 3.9 million metric tons. Companies were operating at 85%. We had a forex cover of three-and-a-half months [from a week]… We had fuel for 15 days at any given time… The one thing I wasn’t aware of when I came into office is there was so much corruption, and that corruption affects the gains you make.”
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-29553 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-001-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-001-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-001-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-001-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-001.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Banda claims she started the fight against corruption, revamping Malawi’s financial management system, which she says led to 68 arrests and 30 frozen accounts.
The corruption scandal, or Cashgate, saw senior government officials in Banda’s administration charged with misallocating funds. According to Baker Tilly, the British auditors hired by Banda with financial support from the British government, the state was defrauded of about $32 million, almost 1% of Malawi’s annual GDP, between April and September 2013.
But Banda says the financial system was abused by previous governments, dating back to 2001. She knew bringing it to light was not going to be easy.
“I was warned by colleagues across the continent it’s not easy to fight corruption… because you are fighting very powerful people who are benefitting from that kind of money, and if you are not careful, you will get smeared on, be fought through and through, dragged to the ground…,” says Banda.
“I decided to go back to 2010 and 2011, as I saw the benefit of us finding the truth, [as] that is the only way to move forward. The audit reports together with the K6 billion ($15 million) stolen while I was in office, and the K92 billion ($232 million) [from her predecessor’s time] are before parliament now. The good news is that the current president has also decided to go ahead with the fight against corruption,” says Banda. The May elections brought more grief.
In the aftermath of the polls, which she alleged were rigged, there was a point when she says she had to take responsibility, call for a recount, step aside from contesting, and concede defeat.
“People have asked me, why did you not contest, why did you concede, when the Electoral Commission had also announced there was rigging? I felt it was important for me to allow peace to prevail. I have always said Malawians come first, this was an opportunity for me to demonstrate that. Malawians must have a leader of their choice, but Malawians should also not shed blood. There is life after statehouse and so much more I can do. So I chose to concede, and have no regrets.”
The buzz in Malawi now is what’s next for Banda? Will she return to politics or philanthropy?
Banda says she will continue championing women’s rights not just in Malawi but across Africa, and since her arrival in Malawi, has been involved with projects through her foundation.
Questions abound about her political future.
“There is a sense of deja vu, with the forex situation worsening by the day, and the kwacha weakening against the dollar and other major trading currencies, many fear that a repeat of fuel shortages that characterized the DPP government may come again. That coupled with the failure to meet some campaign promises may push Joyce Banda’s popularity up,” says Mabvuto Banda, a Malawi-based journalist.
There has also been speculation she might be charged for Cashgate.
“Interestingly, the Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale [in August] lauded Joyce Banda for laying the foundation for the fight against Cashgate but he was quick to say more still needs to be done to effect more arrests. He also warned there will be no sacred cows, a statement that may have fueled speculation JB will not be left out,” says the reporter.
“Joyce Banda has a lot of powerful friends outside Malawi but it’s very difficult for me to see how she could be indicted when clearly many would interpret the indictment as trying to victimize her.”
“When you are innocent, when you are fighting for the people, prosecution does not matter,” Banda had said in Johannesburg, days before her return home.
“If I write a book about my life, it will be volumes and volumes. I want to write one book that [tells] any African woman reading it that [you] can be at the lowest in [your] life and bounce back. In my life, I have been down four times. Every woman who reads my book will know that when you fall, you get up, and run again.”

FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-002

‘Malawians Should  Not Shed Blood’

President Joyce Banda took, what many call, the worst and hardest job in Africa, at a time when Malawians needed a savior. Malawi was on the brink of economic collapse after months of petrol shortages, price rises and unrest.
Discontent lingers, but the economy is improving. Despite jubilation on political podiums; the technocrats are more cautious. Expectations remain high, but much needs to be done if there is to be an economic turn-around.
Banda inherited Malawi’s deteriorating economy from late President Bingu wa Mutharika. Aid dried up when Malawi failed to secure an Extended Credit Facility (ECF) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after disagreements over political and economic governance. In 2011 and 2012, problems with foreign exchange meant problems with petrol. It led to rationing and queues. Production fell as key firms left the country.
“Malawi is still teetering on the edge of an economic abyss. It is obviously not out of the woods economically yet [&#8230;],” says Dalitso Kubalasa, an executive director at the Malawi Economic Justice Network.
The administration in Malawi has taken bold steps to turn around the economy. This has been far from the dangerous economic trajectory the economy was destined for, particularly with the infamous Zero-Deficit Budget (ZDB) of 2011/12 fiscal year. The ZDB stance hindered the economy more than helped it; punitive tax measures were introduced, invoking a huge outcry.
The ZDB framework was supported by around MK30 billions ($87.9 million) of printed money printing, with MWK20 billion ($58.6 million) domestic borrowing and around MWK72 billion ($211.1 million) in arrears to private sector and banks, according to the quarterly expenditure reports from Malawi’s central bank.
“The Malawi economy was virtually collapsing a year ago. The economy is heavily import-dependent in production. Imports account for about 42% of GDP, among the highest in the world, and yet 60% of exports earnings are accounted for by one commodity: tobacco, which is not only a primary commodity but also has endangered demand. The gap between imports bills and export earnings has been widening at an alarming rate and we had been relying on external aid payment arrears to fill this. Malawi relies on external aid to cover 40% of government expenditure, which is again very high. Poor tobacco prices and a drying up of aid automatically results in an inability to pay for imports, hence accumulation of arrears and loss in credit ratings,” says Ben Kaluwa, an economist at the University of Malawi.
Banda’s decision to devalue the Malawian kwacha, to stabilize the economy, was hailed by the IMF, but led to protests, including a nationwide strike by civil servants in February.
“The biggest challenge has been living up to the people’s expectations of dealing with all the challenges as fast as possible; including the issue of dealing with the negative impact of the economic reforms through some cushioning programs and interventions,” says Kubalasa.
Banda, established a controversial employment scheme in July, attempting to decrease the country’s 50% unemployment rate. One hundred thousand migrant workers will be sent to South Korea, Dubai and Kuwait as unskilled agricultural workers or to work in the hospitality sector. Critics worry that the scheme may result in modern day slavery. Around 40% of Malawians live on less than $1 a day, those who will work in South Korea could earn up to $1,000 a month.
Other key measures undertaken include: the scrapping of the zero-deficit budget; the restoration of fiscal incentives, the absence of which had made the business environment unbearable for new investors; the removal of subsidies by liberalizing the prices of strategic goods.
“Liberalization of the exchange rate and fuel prices were meant to obviate rationed access in favor of market-priced allocation. The liberalization of the utility tariffs was meant to incentivize the utilities to invest and also make the sectors attractive to new private sector investors, including public-private partnerships (PPP). Queues for both forex and fuel have been eliminated and there is expressed interest by the private sector to invest in utilities. Manufacturing firms—which had been operating with excess capacity because of imports and fuel shortages—are now believed to be operating close to capacity,” says Kaluwa.
More governmental measures came in May 2012. They included loosening the executive grip on monetary policy, thereby giving a good measure of decision-making authority and independence to the central bank, which is the requisite authority. This resulted in the adoption of a market-led foreign exchange rate regime. These two moves attempt to reconcile huge macro-economic imbalances, due to the overvalued currency that was further crippling the economy.
When the kwacha depreciated by around 50%, an immediate flotation of the exchange rate followed. It aimed to rein in on the huge disparities between the official and parallel forex market and to free up the forex that was being hoarded. The restrictions on forex transactions by banks and forex bureaus, an increased bank rate and a tight monetary policy helped to monitor the progress.
“Beyond the pre-economic reforms it is therefore a fact that we are still a long way off, from comprehensively dealing with the whole list. All of the challenges are structural in nature and quite huge and terminal to the economy, let alone to any efforts, in need of real and meaningful policy consistency for urgent and sustainable consolidation of the gains being realized at restructuring of the economy,” says Kubalasa.
There was support from fiscal policy side, aimed at austerity and recovery. Civil servants demanded a pay rise of more than 65%, saying that the devaluation has caused inflation, which had eroded their salaries.
“On the down side, because of import-dependence in production, production costs have gone up since the devaluation and domestic prices have followed. The cost of living has risen and this has affected all Malawi Kwacha earners and this will be the case for time, until the economy attracts sufficient investment transformation and import-substitution and export diversification,” says Kubalasa.
Banda was ranked 47th on FORBES’ ‘The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women’ 2013 list and was also one of five short-listed contenders for the FORBES AFRICA Person of the Year award in 2012. She is expected to seek re-election in May.
Stakeholders expect economic progress to be mirrored in public service delivery, as well as through the lowering of commodity prices.
A source of discontent is the dislike of austerity, across the board by government. The president has been traveling extensively; most trips are not in tandem with the austerity measures.
Civil society has called for balanced programs; they want extra-budgetary funded interventions to be integrated into other already established programs.
“These include those such as the Green Belt Initiative, the One Village One Product (OVOP) [movement] that needed to be fully sustained and supported by operationalizing the National Export Strategy; if we are to sustain the promise for maximum potential gains they seem to have if properly harmonized and rationalized,” says Kubalasa.
It seems that Malawi and its first woman president have a long way to go.

Banda On The Abyss, In Africa’s Toughest Job

The death of president Bingu wa Mutharika, in early April, was sudden; but it was welcomed by the majority of Malawians. Malawi’s economy under Mutharika was on the verge of oblivion—the result of poor governance and incoherent macroeconomic policies.
Malawi’s growth plummeted from an annual average of 8.3% between 2007 and 2010 to a mere 4.5% in 2011. The economy—choked by a lethal dose of chronic fuel and foreign exchange shortages, as well as persistent power outages—had nearly seized to function. The lack of social cohesion and an exodus of donors added to the crisis.
Some members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) unsuccessfully tried to prevent the vice president, Joyce Banda, from assuming office as stated in the constitution, in the event of the president being incapacitated. Fortunately enough, a couple of days later, Banda was sworn in as the Republic’s fourth head of state and its first female president.
Despite the fact that Malawians would have welcomed anyone as the next president, I believe it was particularly important that it was a woman; and a woman who, castigated by the Mutharika regime, had felt first-hand the plight of ordinary Malawians.
A huge part of Malawi’s social and economic ills were likely driven by pure male ego. The late president failed to heed any advice—political, economic or otherwise—contrary to his views. Such was his arrogance that Malawi veered off course the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) program provided for by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This disengagement with the IMF led international donors to withdraw their aid commitments to the detriment of Malawi’s economy. Donations make up 40% of Malawi’s development budget.
Donor withdrawal led to the introduction of a disastrous zero deficit budget. The ambitious budget aimed to finance all recurrent expenditure through meager domestic resources. This was in the name of ‘nationalism and pan-Africanism’ and Mutharika’s way of defying the West and proving that Malawi was self-sufficient.
Since Banda assumed office, she has had the unenviable task of rebuilding the economy. A recovery program has been billed at $1 billion: an astronomical figure in these economic times. The president’s government has re-engaged the IMF and negotiated a new three-year ECF program worth $157 million. The IMF facility will ensure a return of prudent macroeconomic policies to promote price stability and growth. The international lender has also written letters of assurance to the country’s donors to release funds in support of Malawi’s recovery plan and to curtail the dwindling foreign exchange reserves.
In addition, donors and investors alike will be further assured of good governance following the repealing of several restrictive laws including the repressive media and anti-gay legislations. Other restrictive laws, enacted under the Mutharika regime, are expected to be repealed in due course. This is likely to rebuild the social cohesion which was destroyed.
Banda has also introduced a sense of accountability among public servants which had all but evaporated. Since Mutharika’s death, several revelations of looting, by him and other public officials, have surfaced. Furthermore, it has emerged that key government institutions, the Ministry of Finance and the Malawi Revenue Authority, flouted public finance regulations in a bid to cover up the deteriorating economy.
In my humble opinion, in the three months that Banda has been in office, she has steered Malawi back on course. However, it’s by no means out of the woods. Along with saving the economy, Banda has demonstrated true leadership qualities, which the country so desperately needed. She has said she’s not a ruler but a leader, which is in stark contrast to her predecessor.
Banda’s banishment from the DPP is her greatest asset. She has seen first-hand how autocratic rule can destroy a nation. With this in mind, she will probably desist from any dictatorial tendencies and maintain her consultative and pragmatic approach to leadership. This is likely to be the case at least until 2014 given the state of the economy and, more importantly, the fact that her party has no seats in parliament.
The true test will be whether she can maintain this standard beyond the 2014 election which, as the incumbent, she is likely to win.

Tag: Malawi

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

‘Empowering Women And Youth Key To Unlocking Malawi’s Economic Potential’

The Price Of Puff

Malawi’s Other Banda

The Cold Silent Heart Of Africa

Rare Pollution And Profit

‘Malawians Should Not Shed Blood’

Banda On The Abyss, In Africa’s Toughest Job

A Welcome Woman’s Touch At The Helm