Population notes

One interesting document that does not seem to get the attention it deserves is the NSO population and census data (http://www.nso.malawi.net/)

Lilongwe has overtaken Blantyre as the country’s largest city.

There are surprisingly sharp regional  differences in population growth rates. The growth rate declined between 1966  and 1977(from 3.3 to 2.9)  and short up quite sharply to 3.7 in the following decade only to sharply fall in the third decade to 2.0 (HIV/AIDS) and has gove up again to 2.8 (ARV?). Demographers explain!!

 Over the three decades the Northern Region has increased by 3.3 percent, Central Region by 3.1 percent and 2.4 percent in the Southern Region. For the city’s the growth rates are: Lilongwe City is 4.3 percent, Mzuzu city, 4 percent, Zomba city, 2.9 percent and Blantyre city, 2.8 percent. Any explanation for this?

 In terms of distribution, 45 percent of the people live in the Southern Region while 42 percent and 13 percent are in the Central Region and Northern Region, respectively.

 

Growth and poverty

The problem of GDP growth and poverty reduction is a BIG issue in many countries. There is a lively debate on  data on Tanzania. The “paradox” in Tanzania is that GDP has been growing at around 7 percent a year for quite some time. Data on income distribution suggests that there has been little change and that Tanzania is a relatively egalitarian society with a GINI coefficient (measure of equality where the higher the rate the worse the income distribution)  is around .33 as compared to .55 for Malawi . And yet data from household survey suggests that the  poor are getting poorer and increasing. Now this is logically not possible.  High growth in a context of unchanging income distribution should entail that everyone’ income grows at the same rate. And that is the “Paradox” that researchers and policy-makers are addressing – static income distribution, high growth and increasing poverty. One of the three figures should be wrong. 

 One problem with Tanzania’s  growth is that it is largely driven by mining and telecoms in the context a poorly performing agriculture sector. Now in the context of Malawi, a 9 per cent growth in GDP is likely to lead to some improvement in the incomes of the poor largely because the growth rate is driven by agriculture (tobacco and maize and not sugar and tea) and to the best of my knowledge there has been no dramatic worsening in income distribution.

Anyway the message of the story is that you need know something about growth rate and income distribution to be able to say something how growth affects the poor. The opposition is probably wasting time denying growth which is alpable. What they might wish to arguer is about the sustainability and equity of that growth.

 

State house and the Internet

A poorly edited and sensationalist website publishes a report on the President’s health and there is panic in the government so much so that the  President has to be displayed  as  alive and well.

I am not sure what are the journalistic qualities or aspirations of the people at Nyasatimes.  What comes out clearly is that they are not bothered by the niceties of professional ethics and that they operate on a hit or miss principle: Just publish  anything and some of it might be true. And it is clear that their professional aspirations are quite low. The puzzle is why does the government fall for this bet  hook line and sinker?

 My own suspicion is that this reflects a serious misunderstanding of how the internet works and what its reach in Malawi is. It also reflects the fact that the President is ill-served by his press advisors. The habit of responding to every Tom (no pun intended)  and Jerry actually undervalues the Presidency. Some of the press releases emanating from the State house have been embarrassing, to say the least.

One way to counter the presence of the opposition on the net is for the government to have an up-to-date website and so support the media within Malawi (both opposition and official) to have greater presence on the internet.

Malawi: Muluzi's endgame?

And so the MEC has ruled against Muluzi’s candidacy. This marks the end of an illustrious but terribly flawed political life. Quite incongruously, given his chequered past, Muluzi rose to become the first democratically elected President of Malawi. A constitutional amendment had been made to allow him to run. This must have taught Muluzi that one could always fiddle with the constitution to get one’s way

One major contribution of Muluzi to our politics was the demystification of the Presidency. His easy charm, natural affability and humour did away with layers and layers of pomposity, awe and myth that Dr. Banda had wrapped himself with.

Like all who had served Dr. Banda Muluzi was acutely aware of how political power could be used to amass huge amounts of money. And so no sooner had he come into office did it become clear that the country was about to enter a new phase of looting. The difference this time was that corruption, once the exclusive reserve for a chosen few, was about to be “democratised”. Cronies were given contracts to do things for which they had no competence. Millions of dollars to be used for schools just vanished without a single brick being laid. Privatisation was turned into massive asset stripping of the state.The uncompleted five star hotel in Blantyre stands as monument to the rapacity of his regime.

One  political error Muluzi committed was to bring religion to the forefront. Here was a Muslim who had won elections in a largely Christian country playing with religion when Malawians had demonstrated that religion didn’t politically count. He managed to raise huge amounts of money for the construction of Mosques. However even here Muluzi could not keep his sticky fingers from the monies. Khadafi’s famous drive from Lilongwe to Blantyre on Mosque inspection tour revealed that the money he had given were not used for their intended purposes – building Mosques.

Recalling a constitutional provision had been manipulated to let him run for elections in 1994 despite his criminal past, he sought to change the constitution once again so he could have a third go at the state coffers. True to form Muluzi thought he could use money to achieve this by simply buying votes.  He failed but came dangerously close to making it.

He then thought he could put a puppet in his office and run the show from behind. Interestingly Muluzi knew he had messed up the economy big time. So he promised the country an "economic engineer”who would cleaned up the mess but under his control. This was major miscalculation that has soured our politics to this very day. The his acrimony was not only driven by a sense of betrayal but also and even more so by the loss of access to the nation’s treasury.

He then decided to run again and now the MEC has brought that to a grinding halt. Muluzi is now likely to spend a lot of his time in and out of the courts to account for his illicit wealth. What a tragicomic end. He might end up where he started.