By Linda Kwanjana

Malawi President Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has emphasized that time for crookedness and greed which some people especially those from previous administration have been doing, is over.

The Malawi President, while addressing the Independence Celebration gathering at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe, said that culture has been retrospective to development because only few people are getting rich.

“It means we ended the culture of a few people in government treating the taxes of Malawians as easy money by dipping their fingers into state coffers for doing nothing and sharing it with their friends, because we knew that even though it would cause those who were benefiting from that system to feel pain, it would also ensure that state resources only go towards public service delivery for the benefit of the many, not subsidizing the insatiable appetites of the few,” Chakwera said.

President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera also highlighted high levels of toxic debt, fraud and financial mis-reporting to International Monetary Fund (IMF) and criminal cartels in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) regime as some of the obstacles his administration faced as it embarked on its development agenda.

He said he was disheartened with the $7 billion debt Malawi had accumulated, with no sustainable plan for repayment.

Said the President: “On this day exactly three years ago, I stood before the Malawian people on Malawi’s 56th Independence Day to be inaugurated as the 6th President of Malawi. Upon my assumption of this high office, we made three sobering discoveries that represented significant obstacles in our quest for progress. The first was our discovery of the $7 billion debt Malawi had accumulated, with no sustainable plan for repayment.

“Our discovery of years of fraud and misreporting at the central bank, following a forensic audit that I ordered early in my administration, which resulted in the cancellation of Malawi’s program of support from the IMF and the need for us to effect disciplinary fiscal measures and reforms in order to restore the confidence of our partners and investors in our economic fundamentals.

“The third was the discovery of cartels that not only monopolize significant sectors of our economy, but that also collude with public officials to defraud the government and the Malawian people by smuggling raw materials and goods out of Malawi without remitting any revenue to the state as required by law.”

The Malawi leader disclosed that the net effect of these discoveries was the shrinking of the country’s fiscal space at a time when it needed resources to stimulate productivity and economic activity through the development of infrastructure and the establishment of public service programmes that would lead to the achievement of job creation, wealth creation, and food security.

He said it is against this background that his administration moved very quickly to close the loopholes of wanton theft of public funds.

Chakwera said this is why some people, who used to steal public money, are now crying that ‘there is no such thing as easy money in this country anymore’.