DPP chairpersons, chiefs tussle over leadership

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR

               Makombe: We've lost our authority to DPP chairpersons

A bitter wrangle has erupted in Thyolo Central Constituency involving Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) constituency and area chairpersons and chiefs with the latter accusing the politicians of wielding unnecessary power and assuming the roles of traditional authorities.

Recently, some traditional leaders [group village headpersons and village heads] lodged a complaint with Member of Parliament for the area, Kingsley Namakhwa, to the effect that their roles as adjudicators of civil matters had been usurped by the DPP chairpersons.

According to the chiefs, party leaders had become ‘untouchable’ and were wielding powers more than those of a traditional leader. They said even at funerals, the politicians where receiving more respect than chiefs, a development that did not please the traditional leaders.

Namakhwa confirmed being approached by the chiefs. The chiefs requested him to help in solving the wrangle and ease the tension that had been created between politicians and custodians of our traditions, customs and culture.

“I was told party leaders were setting up parallel court structures where they [chairpersons] were trying and passing judgment on matters that are outside their jurisdiction,” said the MP.

At an inter-parte that took place at Khonjeni on Monday, GVH Makombe asked Namakhwa to discipline his people and civic educate them on their roles and responsibilities.

“This practice has been happening for a long time. Our role as chiefs is being overlooked because party chairpersons are now handling all the civil cases happening here,” said Makombe rather hopelessly.

“We’ve been exchanging bitter words at funerals...every party wants to look greater than the other. This behaviour has always ended into exchange of insults. We want this to stop. Tell your chairmen to know their boundaries,” he urged.

But his appeal was not received with the chairpersons who accused the chief of playing “Judas Iscariot”.

“No! That’s not true,” snapped constituency governor, Samson Magwaya.

The visibly angered Magwaya added, “Let us not betray one another here. It’s you the chiefs that have been causing trouble all this time and today you want to pose innocents. That’s very unfair...we’ll reveal your misdeeds.”

In his remarks, Namakhwa faulted the party leaders for failing to understand, define and implement their roles and responsibilities.

“Some of these issues are too small to settle. Politicians have no authority handling civil cases. Leave them to the chiefs,” he advised.

He further called upon the two parties to resolve their disagreements “for the good of development in the area”.

END

Forex shortage delays Muluzi’s return

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR
Retired President Bakili Muluzi yesterday indicated he would not fly back home where he is also expected to attend court on the 3rd of September 2010.

His son, Atupele, said his father’s continued stay has been necessitated by shortage of foreign exchange (forex) in South Africa, which has forced the former president not to pay for his medical bills.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) yesterday said they had no problem with Muluzi extending his stay in South Africa as long as he makes himself available to take plea on the scheduled date.

The former president was initially expected to take plea in a corruption case on August 3 this year, but failed because doctors recommended him not fit to stand trial.

This resulted into his lawyers praying with the courts to extend Muluzi’s stay in South African for him to continue receiving his medical treatment.

And in his July 23 ruling, Justice MacLean Kamwambe of the High Court allowed Muluzi to continue staying in South Africa until yesterday.

But in a telephone interview from South Africa, the former leader confirmed he was not coming home.

“Yes! I’m not coming back today,” said Muluzi jovially, but refused to disclose when he would jet in. The retired politician could also not explain if his continued stay had something to do with his ill-health.

ACB director Alex Nampota stated that Muluzi’s failure to return yesterday would not have any implications on their case against the former leader.

“The court ordered all parties including Dr. Bakili Muluzi to attend court on the 3rd of September 2010. It did not make an order requiring Dr. Muluzi to come to Malawi this weekend. We expect that Dr. Muluzi will attend court as ordered,” Nampota said.

He also explained that the graft-busting institution has received communication from Muluzi’s lawyers that they will be raising objections to the plea on that day.

The lawyers are contending that they have applied to the Chief Justice for leave to institute constitutional review proceedings in the constitutional court. On account of this, they intend to move the court to adjourn the plea hearing to pave way for the constitutional review, according to Nampota.

Muluzi’s lawyer Jai Banda could not be reached, Atupele said his father would not make it yesterday because there is a bill at the hospital, which the former leader has to settle before being discharged.

“There was a shortage of forex… and eventually he failed to pay for the medical bill. Once that is done, my father is coming back any day,” said the younger Muluzi.

END

Business Feature : Village loan scheme changes illiterate’s life

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR

              Waile outside the grocery:  Today, she can afford a smile

Bertha Waile, 25, does not remember its name, but this money-lending institution has its offices at Luchenza Trading Centre in Thyolo.

Waile cannot remember either when exactly it was, but this unknown organization visited and offered trainings in business management to women from Mikate Village in the area of Traditional Kapichi in the district.

It also provided loans to the trainees. She was among them and it is for this reason that  Maranatha Mzungu is writing about her today.

Waile is illiterate. She was expelled from school because of early pregnancy. She does not remember the year, but the reporter’s calculations show that she was 15 when Christopher Waile, 28, belaboured her thereby forcing her out of education.

“I fell in deep love with my boyfriend, Christopher, who ended up impregnating me. I was very young then,” she said.

Continued Waile, “But the goodness is that he accepted responsibility [for the pregnancy]. And we immediately married. This is how I dropped out of school.”

Waile confessed it was tough for the then teenagers to provide for themselves. This is typical of most teens found in unplanned marriages.

Most of the adolescents who decide to have an early marriage do so because they are faced with an unplanned pregnancy and they feel that they need to bear the responsibility of the child, even though they are not settled in their own lives.

In most cases, teen parents are not educated and immature to carry financial responsibilities let alone shoulder a family or parenthood.

Some of the challenges that teenage couples may have to face include inability to provide for themselves and coping with public shame as some people turn to look at them as irresponsible and ill-mannered.

The Wailes were not immune from this situation. The two did not receive support from parents when they married. Not that their parents abandoned them, but because they both come from poor families.

“I had no choice, but scramble for any job available at that time. I had to work to sustain my family,” said Christopher.

“That’s how I ended up into guarding profession although I was too young for the job. I worked as a guard for five years at a tea estate,” he added.

But the coming of this unknown money-lending institution opened a new chapter for the teen family. After graduating in business management, the micro financial organization loaned Bertha an amount of K10,000 for her to venture into any business of her choice.

She chose to open a grocery shop because there was none in the village at the time. Mikate is situated more than 30 km away from Luchenza.

But people from this village had to cycle to the trading centre if they wanted to buy their basic necessities such as soap and salt. Hence the opening of Waile Grocery in the village eased the problem among the residents.

“We’re told to repay the loan within six months with a profit of K2,400. But because I was the only one trading in groceries in the village, I managed to realize big profits within a short period of time. This helped me pay back the loans without difficulties,” explained Waile charmingly.

After repaying, the beneficiaries were given another chance to borrow more than the initial figure, but not more than K15,000. Waile settled for K15,000.

All this time, the husband was still working for the tea estate. But after borrowing for the second and third times, it became apparent to her that she needed a hand in running her business.

“I requested my husband to resign his job and help me. When he resigned, we charted the way forward on how to boost our business.

“We made new investments like piggery, construction of a family house and expansion of our grocery business,” she stated.

The third chance to borrow arose in 2008. She got K20.000 and both businesses [piggery and grocery] continued to grow.

Christopher said he found it necessary to partner with his wife because what he used to receive from his employer was far below the profits they are realizing in a week.

“I was getting K135 per day. This is very little compared to what we’re making with my wife,” he said.

International Committee for the Development of People (CISP) HIV/Aids and Income Generating Activity (IGA) expert Yusuf Kadwala believes a woman’s entry into businesses and labour market cannot only create the conditions necessary for women to achieve economic independence, but also help in strengthening their families’ economic standing.

Kadwala says there is need for more women to form Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) which he thinks would play a crucial role in empowering women in micro-financing activities and thereby reduce vulnerabilities and expand economic viable ventures in rural areas through improved financial services.

“In some places, VSLAs have been the best vehicles for transforming the socioeconomic development of people, especially women in the rural settings. Thus if such initiatives are localized everywhere, more and more women will attain economic independence and break the cycle of dependence and vulnerabilities,” said Kadwala in an interview.

Group Village Headman Mikate expressed happiness with the progress women have made since they started borrowing from the financial institution.

“This initiative is very good as it empowers rural people, especially women to actively take part in socioeconomic activities. It’s more empowering to teen marriages, divorced women and widows,” said Mikate.

Although during the last decades microfinance institutions have increased access to financial services for many, provision of access in rural areas remains a major challenge.

Traditional community methods of saving such as rotating savings and credit associations (ROCAs or Chipereganyo as they are popularly known in local cricles] and Village Savings and Loan Associations [VSLA], therefore, provide an opportunity to save or provide a means for borrowing.

The disadvantage, however, is that the means do not allow savers to earn interest on their deposits as a formal account would.

Waile is wary, though, that she does not have enough for expansion of her businesses.

But Member of Parliament for the area, Kingsley Namakhwa, assures the entrepreneur that the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) will solve the problem.

“The mini market we are constructing in Mikate Village will act as a window for rural entrepreneurs. We want as many women entrepreneurs as possible to benefit from these structures,” said Namakhwa.

On Monday last week, the legislator handed over 48 iron sheets for roofing the mini market.

END

Three more operations on girl with fistula

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR
Surgeons at Mwaiwathu Private Hospital last week successfully operated on the 11 year-old girl who had been grappling with fistula for over seven years in Lilongwe, but recommended that she requires three more ‘separate’ operations.

Mr. Price, one of the chain stores in the country, had initially offered to pay an estimated K200,000 towards meeting the costs of the operation on the child. But after the operation, the bill rose to K300,000.

In an interview Thursday, Mr. Price Stores Manager Robtcher Mughogho confirmed the development adding that the shop will also settle the costs of the next operations.

“In total, the girl will undergo four operations. The next operation is scheduled for September 13, 2010,” said Mughogho.

Asked if the top class shop will also pay for the remaining surgeries, the manager said: “Mr. Price is committed to meet all the costs on the girl”.

He said the remaining operations will cost K600,000 bringing the total cost for the exercise to K900,000.

END

FAO donates computers to BLADD

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR
Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has donated two desktop computers to Blantyre ADD worth about K500,000 to ease challenges of data management the ADD is facing in its operations.

Speaking during the donation, FAO Country Resident Representative, Pinit Korsieporn, said proper data management was crucial in ensuring efficiency in agricultural issues.

“We’re glad to make a contribution in easing the problems that BLADD is facing in as far as data management is concerned,” said Korsieporn.

In his remarks, BLADD Programme Manager, Nelson Mataka, thanked the organization for the donation. Mataka said the computers will help them in improving management of information systems and increase efficiency.

“We’ve a lot of challenges in providing services because we do everything manually because of lack of computers. As ADD, we are very grateful and we would like to ask other well-wishers to emulate the good example set by FAO,” he said.

Blantyre and Phalombe district agricultural offices will share the two computers, according to Mataka.

END

Don’t rush chieftaincy wrangles to court—Kachikho

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR

These issues are not for the courts: Kachikho

Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Anna Kachikho Friday installed a 32-year old, Helmes Moliyo Kanduku, as the new Traditional Authority Kanduku sounding a strong displeasure against royal families rushing to seek court injunctions blocking installation of appointed heirs.

Just like many other traditional authorities, Kanduku chieftaincy was riddled with injunctions and counter-injunctions because the royal families could not agree on who should ascend to the throne after the death of T/A Kanduku on September 13, 2010.

“If you, as royal families, can’t solve the disagreements on your own, engage other chiefs to intervene. Don’t rush these matters to the courts when you can amicably solve the chieftaincy wrangles among yourselves,” said Kachikho further revealing that her office is full of injunctions blocking the installation of many other chiefs countrywide.

“This is very counter-productive. This is retarding the development of this country,” the minister explained.

Kachikho also reminded the traditional leaders to desist from corrupt practices saying the law will not spare them. A recent report by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) named chiefs as the second most corrupt after the police.

“I wish to appeal to our chiefs to desist from corruption and soliciting of bribes because the practice retards development,” said Kachikho adding that government will not back any traditional leader involved in the malpractice.

She further asked the newly installed chief to respect his subjects, especially by ensuring that vulnerable groups such as women enjoy their constitutional rights without hindrance.

Member of Parliament for Mwanza Central Nicholas Dausi expressed happiness with the installation saying his area needed the chief to help in facilitating and mobilizing people in development activities taking place in his area.

“No development can take place in the absence of a chief. I’m happy, therefore, that after a long battle over who is the legitimate heir to the chieftaincy, we finally have him. As a chief, you’ve a bigger role in mobilizing and initiating development activities in this area,” said Dausi.

People’s Progressive Movement (PPM) president Mark Katsonga, MP for Blantyre Kabula and T/A Bvumbwe were some of the dignitaries that attended the installation where they also spoiled him with monetary gifts.

END

Honorarium fuelling chieftaincy disputes

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR

                                            Chieftaincy has become lucrative job: Kachikho installing TA Kanduku

The mouth-watering honorarium traditional leaders draw from government coffers every month is the main driving force behind wrangles over succession, government has said.

Malawi has of late witnessed an increase in the number of royal families fighting over chieftainship. And most of these families handed up dragging each other to the courts.

In an interview Friday, Director of Chiefs Administration in the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Lawrence Makonokaya said the “very good lump sum allowances” that government gives to the chiefs has been the major contributor to the wrangles in royal families as everyone wants to benefit from the facility.

The chiefs payroll indicates that a paramount chief gets K55,000 every month while a senior chief goes away with K38,000.

A traditional authority (T/A) draws a monthly honorarium amounting to K25,000 while his deputy (Sub T/A) gets K18,000. Group Village Headpersons and Village Headpersons pocket K5,000 and K2,500, respectively.

Said Makonokaya, “Unlike in the past when traditional leaders were working purely on voluntary basis, nowadays everybody that comes from a royal family wants to benefit from this arrangement.”

But the director said the trend will soon be history because government is working on measures to deal with the problem.

According to Makonokaya, every royal family will now be required to submit what he described a “chieftaincy tree” and line of succession to the Ministry of Local Government to avoid the protests when one is anointed to succeed their late ancestors.

“This will be done in the presence of the reigning chief,” he said adding that the exercise has already started in some parts of the country, but on a small scale.

A few days ago, Paramount Chief Chikowi of Zomba confessed before Minister of Local Government Anna Kachikho that the monthly stipend they get was driving many people [from royal clans] to want to assume the position of a chief.

END

Entrepreneurship offering hope to jobless youth

Unemployment is rising at an alarming rate. Many young people are graduating from colleges, but no prospect for securing a job. Could entrepreneurship offer alternatives to the loafing graduates? Watipaso Mzungu Jnr explores in this feature.

Small scale businesses are improving people's lives

Atamandike Shop, situated at Misesa in Blantyre, started just like any other simple grocery trading in basic items such as bread, salt, sugar, matches and candle, among others.

Its owner, a 25-year old Emmanuel Zamadika Jamu, had just finished his secondary education in 2002, but had no steady source of living. Prospects of securing his most cherished job, accountant, were next to nothing considering the rise in the unemployment figures among the youth.

Executive Director for National Youth Council of Malawi Aubrey Chibwana explains that more than half of the population in Malawi are youth under the age of 25years whose literacy rate is estimated at 78 percent with slightly more males (81%) than females (74%).

Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) also states that unemployment among the youth has worsened over the last 20 years.

Increasingly, the youth are completing their education with very little prospect of securing a job, or engaging in entrepreneurial activities.

One of the growing concerns among employers is that most graduates lack experience for them to get a formal employment. This means that if no one employs young people after they finish their education due to lack of hands-on experience, it follows then that they will forever be unemployed as they will have nowhere to develop the expertise necessary for a job.

For long, the role of entrepreneurship has been underrated in the society, but today it is fast becoming an alternative employment not for young people alone, but middle-aged loafing citizens as well.

Jamu graduated with Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) in 2002, but realizing the stiff competition on the labour market due to the countless graduates graduating yearly from universities, he opted for small scale business as a means for survival. His paper was too ‘inferior’ to move the employer, so he thought.

“I started my business on small scale just to sustain myself. I had no hope of securing a job and, therefore, I had to devise other means of making ends meet,” he said in an interview.

“That was the basis for opening a grass-thatched grocery at Misesa. I opened with simple grocery items such as sugar, soap, bread and other perishable goods. But since then, I have never looked,” Jamu added.

True to his words, he has never looked back to the extent that he is now an employer of four people who would otherwise be jobless.

“I was single when I ventured into the grocery business. But as time went and my business registering a significant growth, I married so that the woman could be helping me in serving customers.

“But that was not enough! Hence I employed three shopkeepers and one guard whom I am paying handsomely right here,” Jamu stressed.

“I now have two cars of my own, two shops and houses which I am renting out. I’m happy that I have managed to reach this far,” he prided.

But Jamu stated that this is just the beginning because his plans now are that he should open a big wholesale shop in Limbe in the next two years where more people will get employment opportunities.

When closing a four-week “project management and business plan writing” course in Blantyre recently, Minister of Youth Development and Sports Lucius Kanyumba said formation of new business leads to job creation and has a multiplying effect on the economy.

Kanyumba observed that entrepreneurship empowers citizens, generates innovation and changes mindsets of the people.

“Entrepreneurship is important for economic growth, productivity, innovation and employment creation. It also reduces the burden that people looking after the unemployed youths,” he said.

Jamu, however says instability of prices for commodities in wholesale shops is greatly affecting small entrepreneurs in the country. He appealed to government to consider checking and regulating market prices saying some foreign investors fleece the locals because they don’t keep their prices steady.

END