Kondwani Munthali -Malawi

I conclude my holiday series today with a revisit to the Holy Bible and what it says about Politics and Leadership. I had had time in Durban and Port Elizabeth to read widely, relax and listen and watch news on South African, Zimbabwe and follow abit on Malawi politics. The truth is that amazingly, almost leaders in the countries that I have had focus on all go to Church and Mosque to pray. Today in conclusion I offer my prayers to God to reach out to the hearts of our leaders, let greed and lust for power be replaced by the will to serve and save humanity. I pray for the elections in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and the safe return to democracy for the people of Zimbabwe. I pray for the victims of cholera who can not get even safe water in Harare, Beitbridge and now Gweru. I pray that Robert Mugabe will have the power of Holy Spirit in him to realise that the suffering and the cries of people of Zimbabwe is the cry of God. He needs to soul search his decisions and honestly evaluat...

Totally a different front. I have been reflecting on some of social issues tha engulf Africa and the role of different people that claim that they love Africa. I will not today talk of the snail pace of trying to establish the African Healthcare Journalists network though it seems the tobacco control activist promise more support than what we have tried to get from other health sectors in the past one year. Today is the story of our own rich men and women in all Africa. Philanthropists from USA, UK and others in the name of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Hunter are driving many causes to the global agenda using their self made wealth not the ones stolen from Governments. Africa has had 206 Presidents, Kings and Rulers, yet very few than 10 schools, hospitals or any other public causes bears their signature and pocket money label as having come from them. The richest people on the continent are mainly Presidents who led bandits masquedering as politicians looting the already poor state c...

The former President of Malawi Bakili Muluzi has generated a stir that no other African leader has in the recent past. While in Durban and Johannesburg, I met a Journalist from Kenya, another from Zambia and another from South Africa all asked me exactly what is wrong with Bakili Muluzi and Malawians. I have told them that there is nothing wrong with Malawians, they are honest and hard working people who normally leave politicians to make a fool out of themselves if they want to. However on Muluzi I had no answer since I can not with my public health knowledge claim to have reached the levels of a qualified physciatrist. Reading through Muluzi's speeches during his first term of office (1994-1999) one hears of a democrat that repented the MCP atrocities and that one who would want to give power back to the people. The speeches change radically, when towards 1999 general elections, when he claims to have only 'laid foundation' for the development projects that the country ha...

I had the privilage of reading the letters between President Bingu wa Mutharika and his predecessor Bakili Muluzi from a very unlikely source. Both letters to my simple conclusion were unnecessary and the leakage rightly pointed to the left or right was gross breach of ethics and degradation of the Office of the President in Malawi, whoever the occupant is. However I have lived to see more that individual and selfish interest overides most of decisions made by our political leaders, that politics of survival define more our approaches than those of trying to understand what a Malawian want. Both Muluzi and Bingu are filthy rich, yes, they can within 15 years of our multiparty system donate millions in competition. Refer to the Ndirande saga, which was started by a well meaning donation by Mark Katsonga Phiri. In real terms Katsonga Phiri is supposed to be a rich Malawian having built Candlex to compete at its climax with multinational Unlever, later AGMA corporation before replacing Sh...

Today, a heart rendering and touching ceremony was heard at the Durban Convetion centre in South Africa, 40 million people have died since 1999 from tobacco smoking deaths. The diseases are many so it denial. The Framework Convention Alliance and many Civil Society organisations, are working tirelessly to inform the public on the dangers of smoking. I felt ashamed as a Malawian to hear Malawi mentioned now and then as a country which has not signed the FCTC a World Heath organisation treaty that advocates regulation of tobacco smoking. I am not sure what Bakili Muluzi was thinking, but I am sure my President Bingu wa Mutharika is intelligent enough to read the treaty and realise that in anyway regulating smoking does it kill our tobacco sector. After all as Yussuf Saloojee and Alison Cox say, the crop has not helped Malawians much in their 100 years of growing. I see poverty, we cry poverty and for years we continue to be among the poorest despite not having wars or any sort of conflic...

I have very good freinds in Police service, though by being a Journalist some of them try to keep their jobs by not coming to my office or home since they do handle sensitive information. Others even call me from outside duty points and we generally talk of things that we have spoken in the past-minus politics. Strange as it may sound, I rarely make political debates part of my past time, I have enough of them in newsrooms and with appropriate stakeholders. So when I read or get one more story on Police brutality, I always call my freinds, and thank God even the Mchesi killings, they were never part of it. But it us getting scary. Just last Friday, my colleague in profession Emmanual Chibwana met some Chilomoni Police officers who at a pub were busy tossing someone who was wearing a camouflage attire- in what my PRO Police freind Chingwalu claim to be a "lok alike." Being a Journalist like me, definately he asked the Police officers what the hell they were doing and why didnt...

My car horn got damaged the other Saturday-you know the reason the flames won and I was mad from Dowa where I had gone for some political party primaries all the way to Lilongwe's upper Biwi. My kid brother Osman was mad he literaly was out of the window of my car and shaking passers by. But we manage to wake up the following day and attend Church and praise God for the wonderful day Saturday was. Come last Friday the 17th, it was my birthday-I got mad, Roy Commsy, My sisters and good freinds were responsible for the madness that started at home all the way to Star Light. Thank God there was no breatherlsyer-my Zambian and South African guests cool have spent time in a cooler for the Malawi Gin they had. But I have not written much, congrats to President Bingu wa Mutharika for the global leadership award recieved during the UN General Assembly and so many others in between that I cannot recall all of them. Awards are a reminder of how far we have come and having covered the food cr...