LOBBY FOR FORMALISING SOCIAL SECURITY IN MALAWI

Of late I have had interest in the plight of the Malawian worker and pensions at a very personal level and my below thought train originates therefrom.

Being a citizen of a country in this century should be a source of comfort to the citizenry in all respects such as protection from hunger, access to land of your own, access to free transport and medical attention especially for the elderly and so on and so forth. Malawi up to this date does not have anything that closely resembles any shade of a welfare state, the leadership from independence on is still so deeply into political bickering and tackling the opposition, and the opposition does not help things either, as they try to trip the current well meaning leadership at each and every turn through legal means and otherwise, its a disgraceful mess! Shame on you!

What about the people that fought for independence? death included, Why did they fight? I suppose they fought for they imagined a better society for the masses, Why then is there up to date no legislation compulsorily protecting the employee and the citizen in Malawi? why is protection left in the main to private insurance companies? Has the responsibility for citizens by the government of Malawi been delegated to the private sector? why haven't any of the said lawmakers in parliament even broached the social security subject in a coherent manner? What are the advantages then of being born a Malawi citizen apart from taxation that dissapears into a bottomless pit? what does the 'poverty eradication' slogan mean without social security?.......in the country just next door (Tanzania), proper employee protecting legislation can be and is a wealth creating tool for the nation by empowering the working population while shielding it from financial harm, the sudden explosion of wealth and prosperity in Tanzania is not a miracle, it is a result of policy adopted at independence by the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and his top brass of brave people that dared to be different, embraced their own brand of socialism and other policies to inter alia force the Tanzanian employee to save 20% of his basic salary every month! and now after close to 40 odd years of these proceeds accumulating and the population getting used to forced saving the retiring generations funds are released into the economy creating employment and yes comfort!

The World Bank in 1999 championed Social Security as a tool that is responsible for bringing and sustaining wealth in people in the developed world, through the suggested framework of a fundamental shift to development politics that puts social policy at the centre of development, this as mentioned above is a tool that would be fundamental to poverty reduction in Africa and Malawi in particular, sadly the concept is not yet reflected in the Malawian legal system in its entirety or within Malawi's social framework. It is not that the Malawi population is not thinking of it, they are, for instance if one 'thumbs' through the online Law Society of Malawi newsletter of May/June 2006 there is very good article on Pensions and related aspects by Pasipau Wadonda-Chirwa, a Law Lecturer at the University of Malawi, Chancellor College, Zomba a link for which I paste

FORMALISING SOCIAL SECURITY IN MALAWI

which every forward looking Malawian should read and lobby their politician for to become law before mid 2008, why bury such a good forward looking article? why do we play with our time when we are in positions of influence? why do we not rise above self? why are we settling for mediocrity? why can we not have more individual lives collectively that show achievement above expectations and create a genuine better future for all? what are we preparing our little ones for? a trudge into another level of utter mediocrity? People in authority; lets protect our people, give them affordable housing so that the nation has somewhere to sleep, force them to save through a legal tool (Act of Parliament), give the elderly free transport because they gave birth to a us and worked hard just to bring us up, give the nation a organised health system that involves qualitative free consultation and perhaps again free medication for the elderly and unemployed, we need to turn the corner, and for Gods sake stop holding people ransom on higher education, the current numbers going into university create an artificial and unnecessary college and university educated minority whilst our fellow citizens in Africa graduate thousands upon thousands every year! with all these things not done we will continue to wallow in poverty and sub-servience. Make us proud of our country of birth.

It seems years after the gentleman from Ndirande (Bless his soul) composed our national anthem,'njala, nthenda, nsanje' still reign supreme. We need a hero, someone who will close his/her eyes on the rest of the world and focus on these three seemingly dicey Malawi issues, or is it that parliament is not just doing its job?

Let me leave you with an excerpt from the Draft Malawi Constitution under the Human Rights section as food for thought:

19. Liberty
Every person has the right of personal liberty.

20. Human Dignity and Personal Freedom

(1) The dignity of all persons shall be inviolable. ........

21. Equality

(1) The law shall prohibit any discrimination and shall guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on grounds such as: race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, nationality, ethnic or social origin, disability, property, birth or other status.
(2) Legislation may be passed addressing inequalities in society and prohibiting discriminatory practices and the propagation of such practices and may render such practices criminally punishable by the courts