Be earnest, Mr President

It should not be the nature of columnists to cite their own entries, but I will break this implicit journalistic rule because it is necessary to do so. I have repeatedly written on how President Lazarus Chakwera failed to show the ultimate leadership in the electricity crisis that Malawi experienced for over a year. Only in Malawi do you have an electricity plant…

It should not be the nature of columnists to cite their own entries, but I will break this implicit journalistic rule because it is necessary to do so.

I have repeatedly written on how President Lazarus Chakwera failed to show the ultimate leadership in the electricity crisis that Malawi experienced for over a year.

Only in Malawi do you have an electricity plant that generates 130 megawatts out of operation for a year without any decisive action from those with powers to do so.

You see, like I have said before, it did not need rocket science to find solutions to the problem.

What was required was simply finding funds, even if it meant redirecting them from other budget lines, to fix a problem that needed immediate attention.

But Chakwera and his officers went to sleep and allowed one of the country’s worst electricity crises to prevail for over a year.

I keep on referring to the President because he was supposed to show the ultimate levels of leadership in the problem.

He only started talking about it in earnest months after Malawians had already endured prolonged periods of power outages.

Perhaps, he was not privy to how big the crisis was because he stays in a palace that has electricity all the time.

But, while the President looked away in the midst of the electricity crisis, small-scale businesses collapsed, big firms laid off workers and factories scaled down on their productions.

In December last year, he made some uncanny ultimatum on the project, probably after Malawians had whined too much about it.

Then on Wednesday, during the opening of the 33rd Malawi International Trade Fair and the inauguration of Malawi

Bureau of Standards office complex, Chakwera took a swipe at Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) of Malawi board for apparently failing to act on his directive.

Taking into consideration the anger that was evident in the President’s tone, one would think he was really being sincere in his bashing of the board.

Well, perhaps, he was.

But then he is the one who appoints the board and it should be strange that he waited for the opening of the trade fair to vent out his anger.

What was the President thinking during the six months that his ultimatum kept being ignored by the Egenco board?

In fact, some of us had reminded him times without number that his directive was being ignored.

For once, Chakwera must be decisive and do things the right way. It does not really reflect well on him when all we see in him is a man who likes issuing threats without taking any concrete action.

He appointed the Egenco board and has powers to act on it if he feels it is not performing.

In fact, even with the ultimatum that he issued on Wednesday, nothing will happen because that is what he is known for: issuing threats and doing nothing; then later taking advantage of some public gathering to issue more and more threats.

There is a question that looms large in the whole Egenco saga: Was there no communication between the office of the President and the board during the time the ultimatum was apparently being ignored?

Of course, the board itself was supposed to inform the President regarding actions it was taking on the ultimatum.

If it was not doing that, why was Chakwera not summoning the board to demand answers?

Electricity is a strategic service in Malawi and it is strange that the President did not follow up on his ultimatum to the Egenco board.

That clearly shows he was not interested in seeing the crisis end as soon as possible.

In fact, even without the ultimatum, he was supposed to strictly follow all the processes that were being done to bring Kapichira Hydropower Station back online.

That is what leaders who care about the challenges that their people are experiencing do.

They constantly follow what is happening to address them and update their nations on every stage.

All in all, Chakwera miserably failed as a leader in providing direction on what was supposed to be done with Kapichira after it went out of service.

His only saving grace is that Malawians are resilient and patient people, who are capable of going through some of life’s biggest hurdles unscathed.