Give Mutharika scorecard not on accomplishments but strategies – Malawi historian DD Phiri

Renowned historian and author, Desmond Dudwa Phiri, widely known as DD Phiri, has advised Malawians to judge President Peter Mutharika not on the basis of accomplishments, but strategies he has put in place for ringing the economic and social changes in the country.

According to him, six months that Mutharika has been in the office is not long enough to expect wonders from him.

“When a person takes up a job for the first time he or she displays inexperience. Early days are like Shakespeare’s salad days, days of youthful inexperience.

“We should, therefore, judge the President not on the basis of accomplishments but strategies he has put in place to bring about economic and social changes,” said Phiri.

Phiri therefore hailed Mutharika for setting up a Civil Service Reform Committee, observing that the President has been dissatisfied with the “extant modus operandi to do things differently”.

He however recalled that at the beginning of the multiparty era there was a ‘Chatsika Commission’ which made recommendations, but there was no follow up action after the Commission’s report was published.

“Let us hope the recommendations to be made by this Commission will be implemented in full. Where they are found not worthwhile, the public should be informed. The Commission’s recommendations should not gather dust in shelves.

“Whether the President accomplishes wonders during the next four years and a half will not depend on his abilities alone but also on the type of people he will be working with. And I do not mean just ministers and civil servants but the whole nation,” he explained.

MCCCI criticism

Meanwhile, the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI) slammed government’s idea to harmonize public officers’ wages, warning that some of Commission’s recommendations are a recipe for disaster.

MCCCI Chief Executive Officer Chancellor Kaferapanjira torn apart the recommendations at a consultative meeting between the Vice President Saulos Chilima led Public Service Reforms Commission and the private sector’s members  in Blantyre Tuesday.

“The proposed harmonization of public service commissions into one, and the consequent harmonization of wages, is a recipe for disaster and an exercise in futility.

“Different economic activities generate varying economic values,” said Kaferapanjira.

He also slammed the idea to have some public positions such as that of the Army Commander and Police Inspector General follow the Presidential five year tenure, saying that would create uncertainty to those holding the positions and public including the business community.

“The private sector finds this recommendation to be a blatant legitimization of political interface and influence, which the Commission is supposed to reverse.

“Apart from the Attorney General which is a highly politically charged position, the rest of the positions are professional positions meant to serve the interests of all Malawians regardless of their political inclinations. As such,    the private sector is vehemently against this recommendation and wants these positions to remain outside political influence,” he asserted.

Kaferapanjira, however, said that if salaries are “terribly low” in the mainstream civil service government should raise them, but not at the cost of other public officers.

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