If there is no shelter today, somebody yesterday could not have planted a tree or somebody today could have wanton all down. The babies of 1980s to 1990s must have learnt that their fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers could have wasted a lot of investment opportunities between 1985 and 2005 which has created a shrouded womb to breed more consumers and destroyers than investors and constructors of economy. This essay will discuss 15 elements arranged chronologically into System perfection, Industrial investment, and Attitude change, that 1980’s once babies, afflicted with loss of economic opportunities, have in stock for Malaŵi prosperity from 2014-2029.
Firstly, system perfection, change of current unitary government system which has proven to breed corruption; suppress industry invention and innovations, accommodation of right professional players, promotion of foolish democracy, and investment of taxpayer’s money which fails to produce results that can be felt by a common citizen to improve the daily poor living standards like poor health and education facilities. Making intelligent use of available resources guarantees bigger investments in greater resources.
The new government system which would make wise and prudent long felt dreams come true will have to give regional resource implementation and control, will have to erase limitation in resource allocations, will have to invest in people than consume citizen entitled opportunities, and will have to give governance and administration powers to the professionals to implement policies that will aim at expanding civil and private services investment opportunities to citizens. This will limit dull and incompetent presidents to deny, delay or dismount excellent strategies and projects that will maximize benefits to a voiceless citizen as currently, the success of Malaŵi is dependent on one mind and mandate.
Secondly, citizens in Malaŵi both at national governance and national governed level need to know the Malaŵi self-rule philosophy and prophecy especially successes that one would enjoy or failures that one would face accumulatively felt by the entire nation if it would not be followed and implemented to turn yesterday’s misfortune into a double today’s fortune. This would prepare every citizen to know what industries to boost, what education to concentrate on and what need to attend to.
John Chilembwe rose in 1915, Hastings Kamuzu Banda rose 1964 (although he showed up in 1968). The relative gap is 53 years. This was the ignorance era. Kamuzu reigned from 1964 to 1994 with a relative gap of 30 years. This was the civilization era. Multiparty came in 1994 and by 2024 will have reigned for 30 years. This will be a radical era where new ways of expanding the needs of civilization economically, educationally, religiously, technologically, commercially among other factors that support human social development will enforce power holders to take a direction mandated by citizens or individuals who are able to lead the way for a brighter future. If citizens will have no assistance to notice this, nobody will identify ways to do away with poverty.
Thirdly, one secret of successful families involved in entrepreneurial activities is passing of family and business culture and objectives to the next generation to sustain success. People who share the same goal work towards a common direction which attracts many contributors. Such families or enterprises generate a dominant vision that is felt and supported by all family members.
Malaŵi as a nation needs to have strategic plans, achievable within specific time frames that accommodate the needs and solutions of the majority of Malaŵians which have to be communicated to all citizens. When Malaŵi will have the national objectives and goals accepted and communicated to all citizens, where all citizens will be allowed to contribute directly or indirectly, lateral economic factors will be achieved. These will include the establishment of legitimate governance and administration succession plan, breeding of disciplined personalities in leadership and administrative portfolios, discouraging corruption, focused investments, and successful linkage of old and young civil service and private sector managers.
Fourthly, Malaŵi with the current retrogressive unitary government system composed of the Executive, Judiciary, and Legislature abuses the legislature where its failure to solve social and development decisions are little-noticed to emanate from its incompetence, but rather, political bulldoze. The legislature’s core business for the Malaŵi nation is to make laws. But in Malaŵi, it is used to make laws and deliberate development decisions and projects for all citizens in Malaŵi including allocation of national funds to different government departments, national budget.
There are two major problems associated with the current legislature. It forms laws and decides implementable developmental projects; and is composed of underqualified people who cannot envisage the future consequences of laws made and do not have the capacity to scrutinize, analyze and generate vibrant economic decisions. To solve this, Malaŵi needs to split legislature into Malaŵi Parliament-MP (forming citizen and development-oriented laws) and Province Resource Investment and Control-PRIC (deciding, allocating resources, and implementing economic decisions that do well in particular regions to maximize unique investments and industry growth with a base of subsidies and competition). This will attract competent players who would produce more products and services with efficiency and effectiveness.
Fifth, Laziness is one of the serious factors that make the majority poor and this makes few hard workers support the needs and wants of the majority of sluggard minds. Laziness is viewed in commitment to jobs and enterprises, commitment in bringing new ideas, and commitment in implementing good ideas like the green belt initiative, public reforms in the civil service.
Social theorists like David McGregor noticed that majority of people like to maximize pleasure hence punishing them would force them to achieve job results, theory X. But others enjoy the job because they are informed about their responsibilities hence no need to punish them to perform, theory Y. Malaŵi seems it requires more of theory X to ensure all civil service workers produce desired results from the planned work. For example, ambassadors of Malaŵi to different countries could create markets for unique products from Malaŵi like legumes, fish, music, sports among others. This would expand the export base and bring foreign exchange while creating jobs for citizens.
Sixth, Non-Governmental Organizations have a remarkable contribution towards alleviation of poverty to Malaŵi. These NGO’s who at most use foreign aid, have the liberty to decide where to work and when to produce results from their entrepreneurial activities harnessing charity work. Such liberty is even overstated with the absence of national objectives and goals. This opens a free-range lifestyle where same organizations with similar objectives would be seen achieving less percentage of results because of being scattered. Years now have passed but the same organizations are still working in the same areas as if they have just rolled out.
To ensure that such NGOs achieve more results within a specific period, there is a need to come up with a deliberate policy that would introduce project concentration. This would arrange NGOs with common objectives to service a particular area for some time until problems are solved while empowering locals to gain independence. Later these NGOs would relocate to another area. This would produce more results than spreading the same resources where much is spent on administrative costs than ground projects. This would also enable government runs a sound budget, as areas that are already given attention by NGOs, would be given less attention to concentrate on areas that do not have support at all.
Seventh, educating more citizens even if the government cannot manage to offer employment is important because a graduate is one who is able to identify opportunities and able to generate solutions to how to exploit or use those opportunities to solve social-economic problems.
A country with educated people endures economic problems with a successful plan and quickly generates sustainable solutions to problems felt individually or nationally. Citizen good decision making on economic and political choices is empowered with education. Malawians, therefore, have to get high education to deal with poverty. Such education has to come up with aggressive school syllabus onto industrialization and introduction of technical and master degrees.
Eighth, Independence of regional resource investment and control is one way of maximizing successful decentralization. Deliberately allowing regions to control their resources like land, mines, trade investments, tax collection, social services projects, export trade, infrastructure development among other investments that directly turn into economic indicators would provide competition among regions where innovative region would stand out alone without being stopped or barred by unproductive regions or individuals with tribal or political dominance.
This therefore would also influence vibrant decentralization to Malaŵi which was empowered through the Structured Adjustment Program by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund IMF in 1994.
Ninth, industry Investment, industrialization through unique export trade is a good venture which would immediately bring export strength and creation of a big international trade for Malaŵian produced-nurtured or created product and services. This venture would bring more comparative advantage in international trade while creating minor gaps of absolute advantage. This has the capacity to influence import substitution like textile, food, drinks, and metallic products among other replaceable products.
Malaŵi has unique resources that would boost undoubted exports. She can invest in Iron smelting, cotton, coffee, Irish potato, and fish farming where Chambo among other unique fish species would open up job opportunities, revenue collection by individuals, and government adequate foreign exchange cover. This direction would expand industries and create more jobs where the current government has not more than 450, 000 employees against over 5 million skilled and qualified people who are able to work.
Tenth, The rate of infrastructure growth against the rate of population growth is inappropriate. The infrastructure development which comprises road networks, industrial and residential housing, telecommunication, and power and energy bolster manufacturing and establishment of trade and education centers. A country that does not do well in infrastructure development does not expand industrialization and its economy shrinks or deflates.
Malaŵi is still dependent on dominant road networks, social service facilities, and power and energy sources that were belt 20 or 30 years ago yet the population has grown from 7 Million to 16 Million since the 1990s. This cannot do away with poverty as transport for example is expensive for a vegetable farmer to transport produce to urban markets.
Eleventh, Religion has taken a destructive paradigm shift. It portrays that earthly things are not important yet people’s needs and wants as economics states are dependent on scarce resources every citizen has to work tirelessly to access the utility.
Christianity and Islam are money-making entities that do not pay taxes. Taxing these entities would reverse the wrong attitude believers of these religions have on the need to work for scarce resources with aim of generating a strong economy contributed by everyone. Taxing these entities would also help government maximize revenue collection necessary to fund social services like security, health care, and education costs.
Twelfth, Capitalization of outstanding well researched entrepreneurial ideas or start-ups that are profitable and that have low viscosity for growth have to be funded. In most developed countries like the UK, small and medium enterprises harbor a strong economy. Capitalizing Malaŵian SMEs would also expand the retail and wholesale entrepreneurship thereby encouraging manufacturing for domestic and export consumption.
The funding of SME’s also has to be protected from government domestic borrowing which shifts the attention of commercial banks from investing in people to investing in government.
Most successful small, medium and large enterprises are foreign-owned which come into being with big financial muscle. They exploit massive market opportunities because of adequate capital.
Thirteenth, Technology is a must-win game for every country that dreams to do away with poverty. Malaŵi needs to entirely adopt technologies in manufacturing, trade transaction, communication systems, and product/service marketing. This would enrich the success of the marketing of local products and services.
Fourteenth, Youth entrepreneurship and Investment in talent is a marginalized topic to most leaders in Malaŵi. Programs like Youth Enterprise and Development Fund, One Village One Product, and some allocation to Malaŵi Rural and Development Fund seem to target financing young people in different entrepreneurial activities but quickly became politicized and diverted program objectives and blocked rightful beneficiaries that would have introduced a revolving fund. There is no investment that stands to showcase any of the project's success.
Fifteenth, attitude change support for Malaŵi positive philosophy by locals is a big gap that even displaces the right ideas to huddle support for local products and services. Value for foreign products and services forces an increase in imports and contraction of local manufacturing muscles. For example, the Malaŵi Trade Report 2010 showed that more than 7 Tons of Tomato got imported yet Limbe, Blantyre, Zomba, Lilongwe, Mzuzu, Kasungu, and other district councils markets throw rotten tomato every hour due to lack of bulk market.
Such displaced minds to have value and ambition to achieve from the local endeavors has made most Malaŵians fail to balance the importance of managed small families that cannot exert pressure on scarce resources. The 2014 Youth Data Sheet for Malaŵi prepared by the Population Reference Bureau shows that if the current population of 16.5 Million is not controlled by 2040, there will be 48 Million, almost three times more against same road networks, public schools, health services, security service, jobs and other necessary but stunted resources.
The essay 2024-2029 IMPRISONED LEADERS FOR MALAŴI PROSPERITY is sorely dependent on how many Malaŵians are able to see the current wastage of scarce resources by the poorest citizen in form of commodity money like land, animal and agro-(harvests) products, and precious stones and how much government is wasting billions of kwachas without noticing remarkable economic growth which would easily emit economic development. This extends to how often government offers influential positions to non-performers which shrink industry potentials for growth and extension to many miserable citizens. When these will converge with realization, wisdom, and vigor, the need for a revolutionary change will gain the ground which would bring what the wise and the prudent has envisaged for countable generations.
This was submitted to World Bank Competition but it was never short-listed...
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