Mbwiiye,

Once more, let us set the record straight here. While the late Professor Moya had his shortcomings and idiosyncrasies, such as speaking like wotumidwa (a possessed fellow) or that he had no decorum and protocol with folks who did not make sense to him, the man had a vision.

He knew what he meant when he stood at the Capital door and asked diplomats who did not agree with him to leave the Republic pompopompo.

Mbwiiye, when the Moya said no to massive devaluation, floatation of the then stable kwacha and other Washington-induced reforms, we were busy arguing that the man was on some Scottish distil and that his mental capacities needed special analysis by a panel of physicians.

When the good man challenged some of you to street fights because you barely understood what he was saying, you all said the man was losing it and foaming with ill-health; hence, a suitable resident for the Mental Hospital in the old capital city, Zomba, where he needed some faculty re-engineering.

To be honest, I am not sure why we all did not understand him, because the good man was speaking very clear English, even if it had a heavy tinge of his mother tongue interference.

In fact, I am surprised we never gave the man a chance. Here was a man who had vast experience in these things. Here was a man who had worked in corridors of global fiscal power and he knew what he was talking about.

Mbwiiye, here was a man who exactly knew the DNA of the Washington-consensus characters.

He did not take his views from your mothers’ villages; but, rather, he read it all in lofty universities and practised the same for the rest of his life.

Yet, Mbwiiye, we all refused to listen to him.

And what do we have now? Axes in our heads (Nkhwangwa zili mmutu), crying with escalating consumer prices, eroded earnings and poor take-home pay.

I know some folks in the ruling administration were saying: "Ooh no, the donors will give us something to cushion the fiscal shocks; ooh no, the opposition is just trying to confuse people on the matter," blaaa blaaa blaaa!

Now, good Mbwiiye, tell me; where are we now? Let’s call a spade a spade, not a spoon. Did the diplomats not tell you this week that: 1) There will be no more aid from the Western capitals, because they also have their own problems? 2) Nobody will bail us out of the current shocks; they are of our own making. 3) For us to survive, we must go full throttle cost-cutting and exercising fiscal prudence?

Now, Mbwiiye, between you and me, isn’t this a full egg into our faces, each one of us? Have you not heard of changing goal-posts? This is a very good example.

My next question is: What, therefore, are the donors doing in the Capital? Just occupying posts, getting good salaries, driving around in CD vehicles and assuring themselves they are monitoring our situation? Who said we need to be monitored and for what?

You see; Mbwiiye, time for taking one another as children is gone; especially when we have been told, in good English, that the technical and fiscal support taps have been closed. Sibasi, ukwati wathapo basi?

But, one more thing and this is very painful to some of us—the manner of delivering the message. It was just plain arrogance, what we call chipongwe where some of us come from. Listening to the recent speeches on the issue, one felt being disrobed in broad daylight.

In the final analysis, some of us still feel like global cartoons.

Which is why when we get back to government, we will still revisit our donor relations. Those who will not be working in our interest may still have to be asked to pack their bags and go. We can’t be hosting them for nothing as if they were trophies in a club-house.

As for the Capital CEO, what else does she have to tell us instead of cleaning her flower pots at the Capital Bungalow in readiness to give way to us not long from now after the 2014 polls?

And by the way, instead of hanging around to help lead the so-called Economic Recovery Plan and wipe people’s fiscal tears, we now hear the CEO and her most trusted ‘dogs’, some chiefs and family friends are now in New York for three weeks, on taxpayers’ money when the team could have been reduced and/or gone there later, as most others have done.

We hear the Madame is in one of the most expensive and exuberant hotels in town, and Capital Bungalow as well as government officials are arguing the good lady cannot be accommodated in a nondescript lodge, as a Head of State.

Mbwiiye, I don’t dispute that argument; but the timing is the problem; a malpractice we will never indulge in when we get to power again in 2014.

You see, Mbwiiye, all this development makes me think whether the CEO knows what it is to run government. From my understanding, the Capital CEO, like a Roman general, leads the people on the battlefront or plans a strategy with his/her generals and then monitors delivery on a minute-to-minute basis.

But to be flying all over the globe, posing for cameras, wearing plastic smiles while staging handshakes makes me feel the good CEO does not understand her TORs. To me, it appears as if she takes the Capital leadership as an opportunity to be always on the political catwalk.

That, Mbwiiye, is what I would call ‘handshake presidency’. It ends there and brings nothing to the people’s tables. It is akin to a family album compilation process when members of the unit are sleeping on empty stomachs.

Mbwiiye, this is not what we all aspired for when we chose our political dispensation in the early nineties. What is happening now is what can be equated to life in some ‘Karanga Republic’, where nobody cares. They all sit in the sun, drink some local distil and greet one another while posing for village photographers who use old and heavy camera brands that no one is no longer manufacturing.

Mbwiiye, I am writing you all this for and on behalf of the late Moya original, whose sound economic and strategic leadership ideas people are now agreeing with.

Again, think about these things as we head for 2014, in the name of:

The late Rt.Hon.K.L.Mphwanye,

OSP, OLM, OCK, OLT

Achiever of MDGs, Professor of Government (China),

Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa), Western Pacific, Demolisher of Donors (Lilongwe)