Mbwiiye,
This week I understand one of your cousins who is suspected of having swindled the Capital Treasury of millions of kwachas—in what has become to be known as Capital-gate—was discharged from a specialist hospital where he was treated for some ailment and was also under assessment for mental stability.
I am told he was discharged pending further observations by specialists before he gets back into the docks, because it seems the system is not sure about his mental faculties and stability.
From me, as a normal human being, I really sympathise with your cousin. What he is going through is not an easy feat—to have the whole country, the whole world and so-called donors’ eyes focused on you?
Surely, very few of us can survive that type of pressure.
That is why today I want you to go and spend quality time with your cousin; just to make sure that he feels loved and cared for.
I am saying this because it seems you are getting busy following donors that are distributing relief aid in the Lower States, where you are posing as the guest of honour or major champion for canvassing for the relief.
As I said last week, you can do far much better than this, because it is not only your name at stake but also that of our party which risks losing the next election.
And the issue about your cousin’s mental stability has also given me another idea: I am not sure all of you in the Capital Assembly or at the District Council are normal species; normal in the sense of your mental stabilities.
I am saying this given the way you behave once you get into the Chambers. Either you generate unnecessary noise or make empty contributions that don’t add value to our national endeavours.
Mbwiiye, there are times when I feel that if a psychiatrist examined the whole lot of you in the House, very few of you would come out with a clean bill of health apart from the Honourable Speaker, some of his deputies and the Clerk of the House.
Of course, I know you are voted into office to go and talk or make relevant noises in the august House so that it comes out with the right laws and fool-proof Capital Budgets.
This is why gatherings of this nature are given a bit of leeway; to make a bit of noise. But in your case and that of a few others, I wonder if you are completely sane.
In fact, I hear that some Constituency Representatives were once sent to asylum when they were young for one reason or the other and they still maintain that type of record in their families and communities where they are perceived as too talkative for comfort.
Mbwiiye, I even get stories that some of you still behave like cartoons in your families—you fight at the slightest provocation, you indulge in petty jealous issues involving some imaginary love triangles regarding your spouses.
And in the process you, you fight with your spouses like plebeians, chasing each other around your houses barely dressed. In some cases I hear you go all the way to harass and beat up suspected lovers of your spouses in broad day light; much to the amazement of the general public.
Mbwiiye, let me say all this puts our party to shame. You need to have yourselves examined by competent medical professionals.
In fact, one of these days I want to move the Speaker to introduce in the House’s Standing Orders a requirement that whoever makes it at the constituency polls should be examined by at least two or three independent psychiatrists.
I am saying this because from now onwards we have embarked on a serious project not only for our party but for the country as a whole—where we are talking about reforms, to ensure that we conduct our affairs in a business manner, with less time wasting.
One of the reform clauses is to ensure that we don’t get lunatics into our Capital Assembly or District Assemblies.
Further, it has been recommended that for us to make progress as a nation, we need not only sanity in the House but to ensure that Honourable Members attend proceedings on a full-time basis.
This is how things are done elsewhere; especially where the concept of parliament began.
In any case, we will be justified to decree that any member of the august House works full time given that you people are paid money as if you are in full employment yet you only attend the proceedings of the House four times a year and return to your businesses.
This is daylight robbery. You must all work for whatever you get. I am saying this because I am looking at your basic salaries plus the forest of perks that you get as well as allowances that you demand from the House. All these surpass the packages of people who are either in the private sector or the Capital Service on full-time employment.
That is what we require sane members.
On top of that, Mbwiiye, we shall demand that only sufficiently educated and trained people vie for seats in the Assembly. Time for us to be led by illiterates is gone.
Again, we are saying this because in the last 50 years of our independence we have left major political decisions or legislative powers in the hands of either illiterate or semi-illiterate fellows while the best brains are busy suffering the fallout elsewhere.
That time, I repeat, is gone.
We also don’t need members who have failed in their other endeavours or jobs elsewhere to populate our Capital Assembly.
We want only successful brains to be in that House, nothing else.
Further, we shall not allow you fellows to be debating boreholes or footpaths in the Capital Assembly; no. We want you to deal with national issues and ideas that will add value to our national endeavours.
The minor development project questions should be left to District Assemblies. That is why they are there.
In addition, we shall develop a school for career politicians, not to saddle ourselves with confusionists who have failed elsewhere to occupy our House.
In that way we shall make progress.
If you think I am dreaming, wait. One of these days you will get these proposals during the Private Members’ Bill time. It will be about serous reforms for the House.
Otherwise, let me submit that if your mental network is offline or you don’t have the right education, the right place for you are the many quarry sites or road construction sites where we need a lot of labourers!
Once more, let me repeat what I have been saying all along; that we cannot all be leaders at the same time. Some of us have to be in the forefront while others should follow—but under a common vision and shared strategy.
Mbwiiye, I am writing you all this for and on behalf of the late Moya original or the genuine Ngwazi, whose sound, sober economic and strategic leadership as well as understanding, plus management style, vision and acclaimed statesmanship and sense of unity prevailed throughout his administration that was built on a robust, healthy, reproductive citizenry; people that were at peace with their environment and themselves.
Always think about these things, in the name of:
The late Rt.Hon.K.L.Mphwanye,
OSP, OLM, OCK, OLT
Achiever of MDGs, Professor of Government (China),
Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa, USA), PhD (Western Pacific), Demolisher of Donors (Lilongwe), Executioner of Stupid Certified Idiots (ESCI),
Chief Advisor to the Capital (P1),
US Green Card Holder; OBE, MBE and
Founder and initiator of the Greenbelt Concept
Chancellor of the Capital University
Feedback: emphwanyeb@gmail.com
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