Kondwani Munthali -Malawi

Aid has remained a contentious topic, here at home in Malawi and anywhere in the West or East. Western Governments rush to pull the plug on aid whenever a scandal breaks out, not because of the critical look at the issues, but die to the associated headlines in their local media. In the United Kingdom, the coalition Government is cutting benefits by almost £3billion which simply means, some of the free services the British poor were getting will be chopped or numbers of beneficiaries reduced. The opposition Labour is crying out loud that the gap between the poor and the rich is widening and that the ruling Tory and Lib dems policies are not covering the majority working class. One would be a fool to keep on waiting for the UK to deliver its aid to another country in similar fashion a before. The end of the cold war and the 2007 financial crisis should have served all developing countries a wake up call and change the way we do business. Malawi, like a majority of other Afri...

Everyone has been left with one question, is it really true nobody knows where the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 is? The answer is yes and no. Yes to the fact that the civilian population really does not know where the plane disappeared to. The NO is that the military establishments of United States of America, China and others like Vietnam, Philippines, India and possibly Turkey and Israel they have an idea or possible location of the plane. The whole razzmatazz is about politics and intelligence. The Malaysian Government will not survive long, confidence will wane and more importantly its image has shaken to the core. They have to democratize quick enough to restore the confidence of its own population. Thats the real cost to Malaysia. But what about the other countries? The challenge is that the area is of vital political, military and intelligence interests to all major powers. It was the scene of the World Wars, Vietnam war and eventually the Cold War! Who ...

Once upon a time,we all looked at United Democratic Front as a party of terror. Stories of late Luke Hara's Mercedes targeting Brown Mpinganjira, of Gwanda Chakuamba and Dr. Hetherwick Ntaba running for their dear lives in Kasungu, of late Chief Wimbe taught a few lessons by notorious Zimba, the story of Sheikh Bugidad a target of then Jangiya. The list of violence was never ending. Everyday, a new democratic Malawi saw fear replacing openness and darkness slowly descending that people no longer trusted their politicians, political systems and resorted to silence. In 2005, on 5th February exactly President Bingu wa Mutharika ditched the UDF, every Malawian celebrated the same. The majority thought the UDF had provided enough lessons to what not to do in a democracy. When UDF partnered with MCP in the 2009 General elections, it was the "party of rapists and murderers joining the party of death and darkness" according to the late Chakufwa Chihana in 1993. People resor...

The cash-gate report is out and analyzing all the stories Malawians will not want to hear anything but who is involved. They have their own theories and gossip-our prime trademark- about what really happened. Its sad that some credible institutions are even resubmitted the same evidence taken from ACB to ACB and claiming to be discoveries. In a country which strives on conspiracy theories, no amount of legal work, rhetoric or explanation will convince anyone, especially those eagerly waiting to be in State House that anything tangible is being done. The audit was done by a British firm and the results were all coordinated and released by them, nothing seem to have been the case, everyone now is accusing everyone of tampering because the theories are that are circulated by others we tend to believe are not proven. The amount looted is K6.8 billion (US$15million) much lower than the trumpeted US$100 million the world was meant to believe. Even if I chose the higher K13 billion (US$...

There is something wrong and conspicuously unappetizing about the flair, looks and even body language of our politicians. They look angry, very angry and in most cases detached from the same people they are trying to convince to vote for them. Almost the whole lot of our 11 Presidential candidates for May 20, 2014 lack charisma and warmth that will show us they are human enough to be our leaders. Seriously all image makers should tell our candidates to smile a lot, joke and pretend with their election things will be better. They look like angry grand fathers and mothers. Ask those that attended rallies this weekend will agree with me, nobody is telling Malawians anything new, just like lack of any good news. They are so detached some of them will be telling people that there is no maize in Admarc at a rally when a stone throw away maize vendors are angry that over supplied Admarc maize has killed their businesses. Yes maize now is selling at K5000 it never hit the desired and p...

Many Malawians are dying to know what happened. This report as sanctioned by the National Audit office and presented to Parliament represents one of the most rare cases of transparency on the African continent. Malawi will never have someone still our money again, thanks to the political will of our time: Follow this link to get scanned report:    13.pdf< https://drive.google. com/file/d/ 0B9oRQ70gxIIybHlPTVhGcklIcmM/ edit?usp=sharing >   

This week I promised a closer scrutiny of the three youthful Presidential ticket candidates and how they meet or fail to meet the aspirations of this generation. What I will never say is if at all they fit the cap. But in the many discourses that I participate within seven days preceding this write up, something interesting happened. WhatApp, a sms free application was being bought off for USD16 billion by Facebook. These two initiatives represent young people thinking outside the box. It is the story of WhatsApp Co-Founders, both rejected by Facebook years ago that I found stimulating enough as a challenge to our young generation. Sometime back I wrote how the Youth were the biggest losers despite engineering most of the Arab spring revolutions. After each revolution, the old guard were quickly recognized as representatives of the people and not the youth who fought the cause. That is the same reason why the Youth today are demanding the resignation of Libyan Parliament, brought d...