By Lyson Sibande
My childhood friend Clement Thika is on my neck to explain why I was standing for a bloated Cabinet of even up to 35 members or slightly higher.
I look at a bloated Cabinet as a double edged sword that Chakwera needs to carry around his worst for his political and economic battles.
You see, a Cabinet is a political instrument that is very central to political and economic performance of an administration.
In a different and extra-ordinary setup of government, a Cabinet, especially ministerial positions would be useless because mostly we have Public Servants in the Civil Service who are well qualified and experienced.
They do the real technical work. Ministers are just figureheads, who come in for political reasons and that’s where my first argument arises from.
Since the Cabinet is a political instrument, Chakwera needs to use it well enough for political purposes especially because of how he came to power.
The Chakwera Administration is a product of political and economic efforts and contributions of about 9 political parties which came together under a period of serious political tension and struggle.
They came together with special interests just like any political players and all contributed in some significant way. It is only when we become greedy and wish to eat alone that we begin to question and undermine the role that others played.
So, if the Chakwera administration must deliver, the president’s efforts must first and foremost meet the political expectation of alliance partners. The partners need to be satisfied that at least, they did not fight for MCP interests, but that they too have been fairly rewarded and their efforts and contributions respected enough.
The greatest instrument to achieve this, is to bloat the Cabinet in such a way that at least those that wield power and influence in the 9 parties are included.
Otherwise, when the other partners are frustrated and angry for not being well represented in the Cabinet, they will begin to sabotage government efforts and fight the regime, thereby creating a hostile political environment that distracts the President from delivering.
Malawians were happy to see 9 parties coming together with financial and human resources to defeat DPP. We encouraged the partnership.
Therefore, Malawians would not need to get shocked and cry or act wise against a bloated cabinet because we should have known that if we allow 9 parties to defeat government, we are also allowing the 9 parties to takeover and that’s a huge government with a huge Cabinet. Ndiye bola mukanangowaletsa kuti asapange BLOATED ALLIANCE yo.
And secondly, like I said, the Cabinet is also a tool for economic stimulation even in the manner that it is composed. When you have a huge Cabinet, you have more ministries and therefore more people to employ as Ministers, PAs, PSs, Directors, and etc. therefore, you end up creating more jobs.
A huge Cabinet also means an increased budget and increased government spending through recurrent expenditures and mega infrastructure development projects. I tell you, anyone who has simple understanding of economics will agree that increased government spending is one way of stimulating economic growth.
When government spends more, there is more money that goes to business people. As a result, the business sector grows and they are able to pay good salaries and employ more people as well.
Others are also able to start new business. Government also benefits as it collects more taxes from the working class and businesses. Eventually, the whole economy is revived and grows.
In conclusion, with a bloated Cabinet, the President would not only arrest the political environment through appeasement of alliance partners but also increase government spending to create jobs and activate economic growth – a double edged sword.
