Nsanje port

Bingu is obviously serious about the Nsanje port. He has insisted on having visiting heads of state travel with him to see the project. The recent visitor was the Djibouti President. The project itself is obviously important, bold  and imaginative. And Bingu is not alone in the region in thinking about the navigability of the rivers in the Zambezi basin. A recent report suggested countries along the Zambezi are thinking along the same lines as Bingu.

What seems to be missing in all this is enthusiasm from Malawi technocrats. This is a long-term project. The President needs to have the idea deeply anchored in the Malawi public,  bureaucracy and political elite so that it can survive him after he is gone. He also needs to identity someone who will act as a kind of “Project Czar”and who will devote all his/her energy to this project.