Tag: Tanzania

Which African leaders will truly emulate the achievements of John Pombe Magufuli?

by Sang N., posted in Africa, African, Development, Investment, Natural Resources, Opinion, Politics
Presidents John Pombe Joseph Magufuli of Tanzania, 1959 – 2021.

Since his passing, quite a lot has been said about the life and works of Tanzania’s recently deceased president. And by most fair and sincere accounts, John Magufuli did have a tangible, measurable, commendable and signficant impact on Tanzania, taking the country along an admirable trajectory from a low income country up to the point Tanzania is now firmly considered to be a middle income country.

And most Tanzanians loved him for it.

And yet across Africa, although such success stories inspire millions and should in theory be common – they don’t happen very often, owing to a long list of failures, among them poor and uninspired leadership.

But if John Magufuli – who it must be said didn’t come from some grand or otherwise priviledged background that gave him special advantages – can achieve what he did in as short a space of time as 6 years, why can’t other African leaders do the same?

Power & Status

It is no secret that many leaders in Africa are drawn to political leadership for other reasons. They are not overly concerned about the problems their countries face, or the poverty and hardship. The overriding intention is not so much to provide good and transformative leadership in the way Magufuli did, instead a worrying number of African leaders are more bothered about power and status, leaving a leadership void in those countries, and consequently affecting the scale and pace of development.

These are the people who like to attend heads of state meetings of SADC, UN, AU, ECOWAS, etc. complete with stays in pricey hotels; they like to have smarmy business executives of dodgy companies attend state house to meet them – because it can be spun into an investment story; they love to be seen on the front covers of newspapers, to be interviewed by the likes of Al Jazeera, CNN or France 24 – making all sorts of grandiose promises, which years later, can’t be backed by any tangible achievements; they love to have the doors of their Mercedes Benz limousines opened by well dressed, neatly-shaven and altogether reverent bodyguards – who make them appear more important than they actually are; they like to attend every insignificant function that comes along, where they can be seen to be doing something or to please supporters – even when the impact of such functions on a national level is negligible and a single junior minister could have been dispatched to it. Increasing the salaries of top military officials or the trip to the UN General Assembly means more to such leaders than funding the education and welfare of poor kids in their countries’ ghettos; they like to see a band of protocol-obsessive allowance-seeking hand-clapping minions nod approvingly at everything they say, flanking them at press conferences, worshipping them on social media, inflating the sizes of their convoys, and generally putting out a false and deceptive apperance of competence and authority. For these kind of leaders, a picture taken with Barack Obama at the White House or with Bill Clinton or Richard Branson at some international conference means more than actually getting down to the hard work of resolving the youth unemployment crises in their own countries. They will talk endlessly of courting investors and trying to attract investment at these high level international gatherings, but years on – absolutely nothing comes out of it.

That love of glamour and status is more about pomp (the same english word where pomposity comes from) and let’s be absolutely clear when we say it is not leadership, and is exactly the kind of excess leaders like John Magafuli, Thomas Sankara, Patrice Lumumba and even Julius Nyerere would despise.

Centralisation

It doesn’t matter how talented, knowledgeable and practical you think you are, you can’t adequately cater to the needs of millions of people on your own. Even if everyone within your cabinet was churning out tons of raw productivity, even if everyone in the ministries was ontop of their work, even if all government departments were working with superhuman efficiency and at 100% capacity, it’s still not enough to adequately cater for everyone’s needs from good healthcare and housing to employment and skills development, if things remain centralised.

Centralisation is a progress killer in African countries because everyone expects the president, the minister, the technocrats, the guy at the top to sort out everything for everybody. But the guy at the top doesn’t have superhuman powers to do justice to all the needs and requirements of the people he/ she leads or is supposed to represent. And his/ her priorities often are not the same as the priorities of the people in need.

If the impact of our Governments across the African continent is to be revolutionised, if we are to achieve more tangible things in less time, we need to begin to think beyond one man or woman being the person who authorises and pushes through some project or another to completion.

We need to democratise development to the point where we openly and unreservedly bring into the equation those people (or groups) whose lives are affected by governance failings, or under-service that’s not been prioritised, and empower them to be able to make a real difference in their circumstances, be it allowing them to organise themselves, to raise money, buy equipment, or build the infrastructure they need etc. without having to constantly seek authorisation from the central government.

In Malawi it means projects like the Neno road, a new international airport in Mzuzu, the new hospital promised to Michinji, and the Kapiri-Mkanda road among a long list of project promises should be treated as urgent infrastructure projects, and should be escalated, and a stringent implementation schedule set.

District officers and communities involved should be tasked with a new implementation schedule, provided funding that’s closely monitored, and subjected to regular monthly audits to strictly enforce the implementation schedule. They should also be free to solicit their own funding to add to that effort, and any failures, unexplained mishaps or delays should have serious consequences for all involved. That is the kind of thing John Magufuli would be proud of, and we’ve all seen the videos of his similar hard-hitting approach.

The way we fund, monitor and roll out major projects, and the implementation timelines need to be changed fundamentally, for projects to start being executed timely, and for them to be completed on budget.

Party allegiance vs allegiance to the country & the constitution

President Chakwera in Malawis Parliament

One of the qualities which is common in transformative leaders is that they are not afraid of stating the truth and offending powerful people.

In some cases this can be a negative quality and can lead to a leader’s downfall, but in most cases it is a good and necessary quality to have because a great leader needs to have a strong spine. He or she needs to be able to say No, when the situation calls for it. This is important since not everyone who will try and approach or influence an African President (however dignified the title of the influencer is, or however laundered the reputation of their organisation may appear) does so from a good or sincere place. Simply put, not everyone who talks to an African President has noble intentions.

Unfortunately there are so many examples of African leaders capitulating or giving into bad ideas, bad or exploitative deals when pressured, when they should infact have stood their ground firmly and said No.

Now here, I’m not talking about issues like COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccines which scientifically have near global consensus on how to manage and deal with, in order to stem the spread of the pandemic.

What I mean is if a leader knows or has been made aware of the toxic influence or otherwise corrupt nature of say one or more of his own ministers or officials; he / she must act, and crack hard to decisively rectify that anomally. Even if individuals in his / her own party thinks the scandal should be ignored.

Similarly, a great leader who wants the best for his people should not allow his country to be heavily indebted to other countries or to international institutions. And if they find the debt when they get into office, they need to aggressively devise as a matter of urgency a workable, practical and stringent plan of managing and paying off the debt.

Old thinking vs 21st Century thinking

Employees at WhatsApp HQ

This fundamentally is about new wine and old wineskins.

The world is not what it was 40 or 50 years ago. While a Nelson Mandela, or a Kamuzu Banda, or a Jomo Kenyatta, or a Robert Mugabe were great and necessary needs for Africa 40 or 50 years ago, our countries at this moment have fundamentally changed and have very different needs and wants to the needs of the 60’s and 70’s; the kind of needs which cannot fully be tackled by using approaches or methods devised by African heavyweights dinosaurs.

That’s not to downplay the achievements of these great men, or to ignore the many rich lessons enshrined in their lives. Not at all. But having said that, many of them weren’t able to deal with everything properly. For example many such great leaders didn’t manage to eradicate poverty in their lifetimes, so even back then their successes had limitations.

A modern thatched house outside Lilongwe, Malawi.

Instead, our countries in Africa need leaders who understand the dynamics of the 21 Century; who ask questions such as:

what 20 practical things can we do to maximize the chances of the next WhatsApp being founded in our country?

The Africa of today needs young and dynamic leaders with vision who will pioneer projects for better connectivity, cheaper and affordable modern housing, attractive & inspired infrastructure, and well connected networks of affordable public transportation (modern trams, trains and road networks). Our countries in Africa need cheaper logistical costs for importation of desirable foreign goods, cheaper logistical costs for ease of export of the country’s processed goods without making them too expensive on international markets, State owned and run multi-billion dollar projects that will not only create thousands of jobs, but will bring forex – several of the kinds of things which we are now beginning to discover Tanzania was working towards. The list is rather long.

You can’t do that kind of thing effectively if you are still thinking of how to maintain a well-equipped secret police, or if your focus is just on winning the next election. You can’t do that if your parastatals and large public companies aren’t run by anyone under the age of 35, or when you don’t have enough women in leadership roles in such companies…

Birmingham City Library

It’s the difference between on one hand promising to build a stadium (whose long term impact on a poor country is debatable), and on the other hand working to build high quality modern libraries in each district and to bring free high speed internet to poor citizens and their children – most of whom can’t afford the often high data costs charged by private companies currently operating in African countries.

Continuing the spirit of Magafuli will require a fundamental shift in the way governance has been done in Africa for a long time. It will require true selflessness beyond party, tribal or national lines. It will mean breaking against party, regional and historic allegiances and doing what is best for everyone, not just the biggest or most powerful side. It will mean negotiating hard for the interests of the people, and not being intimidated by foreign powers or external pressure on matters of national or regional importance.

Magafulism has raised the bar extremely high for African leadership, and was well overdue. For now it remains to be seen just how many current African leaders will truly rise up to the challenge?

Why China should help Mozambique and Tanzania develop their Natural Gas production Capacities

by Sang N., posted in Opinion, Thoughts

I refer to the section 3.1 titled ‘Addressing General weakness of the economy’  and section 6.1  titled ‘Unchecked Greed and Resource Conflict’ of the above document, which has the following interesting paragraphs:

Given the prospects of high revenue earnings from economic rents of oil and natural gas, unchecked greed of business, political or other social leaders can foment and precipitate “resource conflicts”, which manifest as civil wars, regional conflicts involving neighbouring countries which share common borders, as well as in-country social divisions which weaken national solidarity. In the extreme they become a prelude to secessionist tendencies, with intent to draw new territorial boundaries curving out the regions with rich resource endowment and to declare them as independent sovereignty. That is the “resource curse” per excellence! Resource conflicts destabilize nations hosting unchecked greedy “resource seeking investments” and increase the risk to human safety, natural resource extraction infrastructures, as well as raise the overall cost of doing business.
… The discovery of huge natural gas resources has engendered heightened expectations for Tanzania with respect to revenue receipts and the likely spending power of the government. People think Tanzania can immediately get out of the poverty trap and move into the middle to high income bracket. Such popular view does not appreciate the level of investments required, the engineering challenges to be overcome and the time required to move through all the process steps before commercial gas production commences. The timeline is
between 5 to 8 years activities.

While there may be few dream images of the erstwhile Middle East and Persian Gulf countries as models for sharing national prosperity of the new gas economy, there are also nightmare images of the bad experiences of the Niger delta being repeated in the Ruvuma delta. It is common knowledge that oil production in the Niger delta has resulted in environment degradation on a massive scale, which has totally damaged the traditional local economy and livelihood which was based on fishing and agriculture. In that regard, the local communities feel “left out” of the growth and economic benefits, which have accrued to Nigeria as an outcome of exploitation of the petroleum resources. Then local communities have come to be viewed as a security threat because they have engaged in hostile activities against both the Government and the Oil industry. …

But first, lets deal with China. I’m not completely sold about them. I like their organisation and unity, and how they can achieve seemingly heavy tasks, in very short periods of time, and at a fraction of the cost west companies would undertake such tasks. But there can be a price. On quality in particular. Further, I don’t like the controversies that they tend to leave behind, or rather the alleged conduct of some Chinese companies, neatly dissected here, regarding their practices in Africa, and the implications of such practices. I also wish Chinese politicians and officials could at least raise human rights issues when dealing with countries such as Uganda, Sudan (where they’ve sent 700 troops), DRC, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.

But that’s besides the point. Some readers of this blog will know  that there have been large Natural Gas finds off the coasts of Tanzania and Mozambique. The estimates of the finds range from  46 trillion cubic feet(tcf) to 55 tcf. for the deposits in Tanzania, and 50 tcf. to 70 tcf. for the deposits in Mozambique. In plain English it’s a fortune!

According to Standard Bank, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) will add $39 billion to the Mozambican economy over the next 20 years, boosting GDP per capita from approximately $650 in 2013, to $4500 by 2035.

The trouble is, it is being claimed that billions upon billions will be required to put in place the technology, infrastructure, structures and logistical capacities to realise the benefits of these reserves.

And I simply don’t believe it will cost that much.

Now, I may be an engineer – one who knows how to build certain things cost-effectively, but I’m not a geological engineer. I’m not a surveyor, or an industry professional within the natural gas or petroleum industry, and my contention is based purely on rebuttals such as these – in this case of the corrupt practices in the construction sector in Malawi. But having said that I can find some credible industry professionals who can provide an honest unbiased opinion of the costs involved.

In other words, the $10 billion that is claimed in the above paper as the cost of building capacity, how exactly did they arrive at such a costing? I’m not disputing it outright, I’m just curious to know how they computed the figures…. since as I stated earlier, contractors and other infrastructure developers have a bad habit of quoting say £10,000 for a job that in real terms will cost £1000 to build (that is in real money the cost of raw materials, labour, logistics). The extra £9000 goes to profits for the company …and it is this that I have a probelm with because in my view it is hugely inflated.

So if someone says some project will cost $10 billion, alarm bells automatically start ringing in my head. I begin asking, is that $10 billion the real cost of raw materials and labour, or are we factoring in wastage in terms of corruption, the profits you want your company to make – off the coffers of the undiscerning African government, and off the backs of the helpless African people??

In the long term this translates to tax payers who must be taxed heavily to pay off the debt that will be taken by the government to finance such a project. Pensions that will remain meagre, because the African government is still paying that $10 billion loan they took…school children who will continue to have poor facilities, because…well, there’s no money to invest in modern educational facilities…salaries that will remain low…lapses in security, because, well, there’s simply not enough money about to improve security or pay decent salaries… I could go on.

My point is if the Mozambican and Tanzanian governments asked the Chinese for greater degree of help, in establishing the industry, employing professionals, while maintaining ownership of the whole project and resource (or atleast a large % of it) – as opposed to letting any foreign corporation have the lions share – the governments would most probably be able to build everything cost-effectively, probably for less than £2 billion, and Tanzania and Mozambique would come out stronger than any arrangement that gives ownership (or  the lions share) of the finds to a foreign private company.

Artificial African Boundaries

by Sang N., posted in Education, Inspiration, Research

This is an extract from a page in honour of Kanyama Chiume on Facebook. I’ve reposted it here because it echoes a lot of what I believe. Further, it’s undeniable that our economies are struggling in Africa not only because of corruption, illicit financial outflows and all of the other evils, but also because we do not trade with each other enough, and critically, we are not sufficiently united in the way that say China is united, or how the majority of South American countries are united.

Kanyama-NyerereWhen African nationalists worked together for the benefit of all. That is self-evident in this letter written by Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika to Kanyama Chiume in 1960, when the latter was exiled in London during the State of Emergency in Nyasaland. From the London office, Chiume had the task of keeping NAC party alive at international stage, at a time when it was banned from operating in Nyasaland and some of its leaders chased out of the protectorate while others were detained after Operation Sunrise (Kamuzu Banda along with Masauko Chipembere, Dunduzu Chisiza and Yatuta Chisiza were languishing in jail in Gwelo, Southern Rhodesia).

This letter, found at the British National Archives in London by Prof. Azaria Mbughuli, a historian at Spelman College, shows the extent of cooperation between African freedom fighters. Prof Mbughuni adds:

“The letter is yet another reminder of how Africans are interconnected. The artificial boundaries we hold on to so dearly are just that: artificial. We have come to accept them as a reality. Nyerere and Chiume worked closely through PAFMECA/PAFMECSA, both espoused Pan Africanism as an ideology of unity and a tool for liberation. If one looks really closely at Chiume’s story, you realize the foolishness of the colonial boundaries. Born in Nyasaland, Chiume lived in Tanganyika from age 8 with relatives, went to school in Tanganyika, attended school inTabora with the likes of Kambona, taught in Dodoma (resigned his position in 1955), collaborated with TANU in the mid-1950s, 60s, basically throughout most of his political carrier; and off course, eventually married a Tanzanian. TANU provided regular support to Nyasaland African Congress in the late 1950s through him. I came across a peculiar situation in early 1950s where Nyerere is asking Odinga of Kenya to help him talk to the Luo in Tanganyika because they did not want to join TANU! You have ethnic groups split by artificial boundaries; it is no surprise that people from different “territories” worked closely together to demand freedom and independence.”

Growing African economies that will work for African people

by Sang N., posted in Aid, Development, Economy, Initiatives, Justice, Leadership, Opinion, Policing, Public Policy, Thoughts

African market
Women at an African market

Tanzania just announced that it will dump English as its official language in schools, opting for Kiswahili instead. This morning, I read this article that somehow appears to suggest that this is a bad idea.

I must say I disagree, and below I’ll try to explain why.

When the colonial powers came to Africa, one of the first things they did was to impose their own languages as the language of learning in their territories. France imposed French in the various west African territories it colonised, Portugal imposed Portuguese, Holland imposed Dutch and Britain imposed English and so on. This had the effect of dividing communities which were otherwise related. The overall effect was to stop any hope of large countries the size of the Democratic Republic of Congo from ever emerging out of Africa. It was divide and rule of the purest form. Fragmentation – a cruel tactic designed to tie the future of those then colonies forever to the colonial powers.

So the english taught was not necessarily to be a conduit of knowledge transfer that would empower the colonies as some people would have you believe. Instead, it was a move to make sure that schools produced compliant subjects which could easily be manipulated, and do the bidding of the colonial masters in Europe.

And that is reason enough in my view for Tanzania to change the official language to Kiswahili, because the motive of colonised Tanzania having to communicate in foreign languages was entirely driven by foreign interests.

Secondly, groups of people often associate and define themselves as an ethnicity on various terms, but one of the most common denominators, other than ancestry is language. You identify as Chewa because your parents are Chewa and they spoke Chichewa, they lived in the land of the Chewa, their village was in the Chewa belt. Therefore you are Chewa.

This is the norm, not the exception.

So as Tanzanians, the question which the above article answers is that Kiswahili is a unifying force in Tanzania. It holds together the people, even though they are made up of 130 different ethnicities.

So why then should they conduct their lives based on an imported language when they have a language of their own?

Who’s interests does having English as an official language of education ultimately serve?

Why teach in English when students could learn in their own African language? Are people not proud of being African?

If the US, Britain or Spain is unlikely to begin teaching their students in Nyanja or Kiswahili which are African languages, why is it somewhat acceptable or expected for Africans to teach their students in foreign languages?!?

In any case, shouldn’t Tanzania develop an economy that first and foremost works for Tanzanians (if you can allow me to temporarily step out of my usual Pan-African shoes), people who are citizens of a sovereign country?

In the above article, the author quotes Ahmed Salim, a senior Associate at Teneo Intelligence, a political risk consultancy that works with U.S investors, who makes what I consider to be a hopelessly narrow-minded point:

However, in terms of overall impact, the main challenge will be felt long-term when companies set up shop in Tanzania and are left with hiring staff that are either bilingual Tanzanians or from neighboring Kenya or Uganda. This will somewhat hinder Tanzania’s competitive advantage in the future.”

Now, I’m not saying they should stop teaching English altogether, or that English isn’t an important international language. That’s not what I’m saying. Instead the argument for English is tied to this over-emphasis on foreign investment (money coming from the outside of Africa) to help and rescue Africans, to give them jobs and create an economy – as if Africans themselves couldn’t use their own resources to create economies that work for the benefit of African countries.

Tanzania has many natural resources including natural gas (See the following links Tanzania’s Natural Gas Reserves Almost Triple on New Finds ; Statoil makes another natural gas find offshore Tanzania ;  BG Group touts Pweza as its largest Tanzania gas find ). The country’s economy is growing at a rate of 7% which is quite high and above the international average. If those resources are utilised properly by the government of Tanzania for the benefit of the country’s citizens (as opposed to liberally auctioned-off to the highest corporate bidder) they could be a source of some serious economic development that would create jobs for young Tanzanians, investment into security, and used for infrastructure development, investment in Education, Healthcare and women’s issues.

That investment, derived from wholly Tanzanian owned resources, could be a serious game changer if utilised wisely.

But if some corporation is allowed to own a majority stake, or lions share of Tanzania’s Natural Gas resources, I can tell you now what difference it will make to the Tanzanian economy in the long run:

NONE.

The profits that corporation makes will be wired out of Tanzania to already developed and rich countries. Countries that needs the benefit of the resource much less, and that have billions in cash reserves to fall back on. And those profits will find their way into the fat pockets of already rich shareholders in those rich countries. Ultimately such funds will trickle down to contribute to the tax system of those already rich countries, benefitting their economies.

Meanwhile, poor Tanzanians already struggling with poverty, low incomes, unemployment, high cost of living, government corruption, who do not own property, poor healthcare in hospitals and the lack of medicines, no electricity in most areas, deforestation, poaching and lack of clean water in the villages will not have benefitted proportionately from such natural gas deals. Instead they will have to continue receiving handouts, breadcrumbs from aid organisations – when their country possesses the natural resources that could be used to create wealth for them…all just because of greed of some corporations

How absurd and stupid is that?

So the scare mongering self-serving attitude against Tanzania choosing to teach their students in Kiswahili is wrong, It’s anti-African and I vehemently disagree with such dishonest views.

Africans and other developing countries have been stamped on for too long. We must end this corporate driven theft and madness and begin to create economies which are designed to serve and benefit us as Africans, just as others have been building economies to benefit their own economies, and their own people.

Tanzanian PM under pressure to resign over alleged fraudulent payments

by Sang N., posted in Thoughts

Tanzanian PM under pressure to resign over alleged fraudulent payments via Guardian

Mizengo Pinda accused of authorising unlawful offshore payments under guise of energy contracts a month after donors withhold funding amid corruption fears

Tanzania’s president knows how to play the China card

by Sang N., posted in Thoughts

Tanzania’s president knows how to play the China card via China Africa Project

Quite interesting podcast, because there have been many African leaders who have been trying to cosy up to China in recent years. From Robert Mugabe to as we can see here, Kikwete, China is becoming the place to go for Capital for African leaders, something which probably wasn’t conceivable 50 years ago.

Among the links below, one statement [in the guardian article] is most striking:

….Tunisia’s president, Moncef Marzouki, said economic development alone could not provide stability without social justice and political rights. He said foreign businesses have a responsibility to do more than seek profit and should choose to invest in democratic states that are working to combat corruption, educate their populations and create equality. …

Links

IFMIS : What did UDF, DPP and PP know?

by Sang N., posted in Fraud, Institutions, Leadership, Opinion, Politics, Public Policy, Research, Thoughts

IFMIS

Reports can be fantastic pieces of literature. Absolutely wonderful things…informative, revealing, ridiculing, attesting – marvelous!  More so if they happen to be government-funded.

Whenever political leaders are busy paying lip service, telling lies, denying allegations and generally being unpleasant to their electors (and those who didn’t elect them), a little bit of research can quickly reveal who amongst the herd is Pinocchio.

The report above which is a summary can be downloaded here: Summary of key findings and recommendations of GOM IFMIS Review-2. It is dated 18th November 2009, and is a summary of a Report commissioned to asses how the IFMIS was functioning. It is titled QUICK ASSESSMENT OF THE INTEGRATED FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM.

The original report (which I imagine can be obtained from the Public Financial and Economic Management section of the Ministry of Finance) is over 200 pages long (and don’t ask how I got my hands on it), but this summary is only 34 pages long. According to this summary:

As part of the continuous PFM reform processes in a bid to further enhance public expenditure management, the Malawi Government through the PSRMU of the OPC engaged the author through UltiNetS2 to undertake a quick impact assessment of the EPICOR* based IFMIS implementation with a core objective to identify any system operational or functionality challenges and make appropriate recommendations for improvements.

*EPICOR is the company that makes such software

In other words the report was commissioned to highlight the benefits and challenges of the IFMIS and ask questions such as:

(1) What is the IFMIS?

(2) Why was it chosen by the Ministry of Finance (MOF)?

(3) Is it working as intended / achieving its purpose?

(4) How well is it performing ?

(5) What are the problems / operational issues ?

(6) Where are these problems / operational challenges?

(7) What can be done to improve its performance/ resolve these problems?

… and so on.

At the time of commissioning, Bingu Wa Mutharika had been in power for some 5 years and 6 months.

Before we look closely at this summary, a notable point is somewhat appropriate: the version of IFMIS Malawi installed on its systems / computers is based on a version Tanzania installed. We all know that not too long ago, Tanzania’s president sacked his cabinet ministers due to corruption. Was this related to IFMIS?? I think someone needs to find out?

Earlier in 2006, the OECD Journal on Budgeting carried an article by Jack Diamond and Pokar Khemani titled ‘Introducing Financial Management Information Systems in Developing Countries‘ that explored the merits of the IFMIS system and looked at case studies in developing countries including those across Africa.

According to the OECD article, attributes of a well-designed FMIS include:

attributes-ifmis

Yet if you take a look at the summary of the IFMIS in Malawi, it’s indisputable how hollow and a shambles the whole rollout was. Everything was dysfunctional, from the contracting phase to the implementation phase and support, everything was a disaster!

According to the UltiNetS Summary, the positives include:

– The successful implementation of the EPICOR based IFMIS significantly contributed to the debt cancellation for Malawi as a country under the HIPC initiative

– The implementation of EPICOR based IFMIS has to some extent assisted the Government in restoring some fiscal discipline through public expenditure management particularly on transactions that are primarily processed through the system.

– The introduction of EPICOR based IFMIS has significantly checked the proliferation of Government bank accounts by the MDAs* thereby giving the AGD* a better control.

– The introduction of the EPICOR based CPS* has significantly restored the credibility of Government cheque payments to its creditors.

*[AGD: Accounts General Department; CPS: Central Payment System; MDA’s: Ministerial Departments and Agencies]

Yet in spite of all this, we are then informed that:

– The conditions of contract were more in favour of the contractor (Soft-Tech Consultants) than the client (Malawi Government) which clearly shows that the client did not have much input into the document before engagement.

– There was no valid justification for the training to be conducted for almost the whole year and at every site of implementation, hence proved too expensive for the Government considering similar implementations.

– The IFMIS contractual costs are too high than anticipated (almost USD $1.7million) more particularly on the user licences, consultancy, training services and travel which account for almost 91% of the total cost.

– There was non strategic procurement of bout 240 system concurrent user licences for all 32 sites for all the modules when only a few of these licences are currently used.

–  The EPICOR based IFMIS architecture, design and operational framework is incomplete to constitute an ideal Government IFMIS system design and operational architecture as it still falls short of
other key elements and full functionality of the sy stem.

In other words, the Malawian government has been using an incomplete and system that is not fit for purpose. The observations continue:

– There is a great deal of system underutilization considering the number of procured modules and other key features within the existing functional modules that are currently not functional.

– The system does not have any alert system to detect any fraudulent activities or any deviations to normal operations within the system such as overriding system controls without appropriate approval
process and any system performance issues let alone a functional audit trail to track system usage

If post-Cashgate you wanted to know why junior accounts assistants (see most recent revelations here) were found with millions of dollars, this is precisely why.

– The current Chart of Accounts is not yet fully GFS compliant as per the IMF requirement and does not fully respond to the performance measurement indicators of the current MGDS.

– From a budget execution perspective, the EPICOR based IFMIS system is working perfectly as a budget expenditure control system since no funding or expenditure can take place where there is no budget unless overridden, however the system does not block budgets that have already been expended to the equivalent of expenditures 

In other words, a user can Overspend. In principle, this means that a user can generate a cheque and get the Reserve Bank of Malawi to honour it, even when on his budget, that money doesn’t actually exist.

– The IFMIS infrastructure does not have any intrusion prevention and detective system or mechanism to easily gain visibility and monitor any potential security threats considering that the access in mainly by user ID and password which can easily be accessed

So who can say whether foreign criminals haven’t laid their hands on some of this money??

– Some of key control features particularly in the payment management approval process within the IFMIS are not yet activated and functional to improve the entire system internal control framework.

– The current payments management system is weak and prone to exploitation or abuse by colluders as access into the system and Accounts Payable module in particular is not physically authenticated beyond normal user ID and passwords due to lack of appropriate tools.

Again, like above, misappropriation withing IFMIS is easy, so long as you have a username and password. And people could collude to steal money, so the Cashgate scandal should not be a surprise at all.

– The current core accounting system and financials suite of the EPICOR based IFMIS has an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) module which is more secure mode of payments which if implemented could help reduce some instances of cheque frauds and frequent delays in processing and dispatching cheques. In addition, it could eliminate risks associated with the MALSWITCH link used for cheque list transmission.

So they knew that there was cheque fraud happening? Or is this just a hypothetical situation?

– The current structure of the CPS within the EPICOR based IFMIS lack appropriate tools and effective controls for checking, verifying and authenticating or validating payment transactions within key units before issuing cheques or effecting transfers to third parties, hence difficult to detect any fraudulent payments from within the financial system. For instance the Receiving unit of the AGD’s CPO does not have any means for verifying the authenticity of signatures on the payment vouchers and electronic voucher list from the MDAs, hence difficult to establish any instances of forgery.

There was no capacity to check if signatures are fake, meaning forgeries could have occurred, or did occur?

– The NAO [National Audit Office] does not have adequate capacity to audit the EPICOR based IFMIS functionality apart from auditing the financial statements (‘ Appropriation accounts’) as it does not have automated audit management tools to enable carry out that function

– The NAO does not have adequate capacity in terms of man power and funding to effectively carry various types of audits covering automated systems.

…

All this advice was given to the Office of the President under DPP’s watch, when Mutharika was at the helm. Further the 2006 OECD report at page 19 / 115(last paragraph), states that:

In general, the implementation phase has not progressed well, primarily because of clearly limited involvement and some neglect of the system by the main players, including the Ministry of Finance, the Accountant General and pilot ministries. There are several significant issues to be addressed before the system can be made fully functional and rolled out.

Neglect?? That’s a strong word. When they received this advice, why didn’t DPP act?  And if they claim to have acted, what did they do to solve the above problems? More importantly, when PP came into power, did they know of this report and its findings, given the fact that the Ministry of Finance is a crucial ministry in any country?

I think the Malawian people deserve some answers. Malawians need responsible leaders who will help develop the country, not a hopeless and clueless bunch who are only interested in self-enrichment…

Reviewing this summary, it is absolutely clear that the Ministry of Finance knew the dangers of the IFMIS and the fraud that was happening ? They must have known. There are no two ways about this. But they ignored the problems/ fraud, or took advantage of them. In my view, the silence / inaction suggests some people was benefitting from the mess. Clearly, Lipenga and his juniors were hopelessly incompetent, and Joyce Banda must take responsibility for bringing in such a useless man into such a respectable office.

It all simply begs the question, how can such massive amounts of money be embezzled when the inherent problems were known? Those responsible for the plunder must pay back what they stole…Every single penny! And face the arm of the law.

The fact that successive governments knew there was a problem, but didn’t act strongly suggest there was a conspiracy to defraud the Malawian people, such that our syndicate theory may in fact be broader and far-reaching than us ordinary folk think?

Why do Malawians elect incompetent officials who can’t even do the basics?

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