Talking with journalists in Mzuzu
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2007
1
26
38
Trip End
Jun 2007
Mzuzu,
Malawi
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The trip to Mzuzu was straightforward. I hitched a lift in the back of a 4x4 from Vwaza to Rumphi. The 4x4 had the back seats taken out of it, and I was surprised when the boot was opened and saw that there were another seventeen passengers squashed in. Room was made for me and I sat in and off we went. The trip was completed in half the time it had taken to come in the pickup the day before, which was a blessing, as my leg went completely dead because of my sitting position, and I sneezed the whole way because of the clouds of dust that came inside the vehicle off the road. From Rumphi to Mzuzu was an hour in a matola, which was no bother to me whatsoever.
Mzuzu is a nice, medium sized town, based around a central market and bus station. It is big enough to have some sort of character to it, but I can't claim to have gotten to know that character because of only having been there for less than 24 hours. Those hours were spent at a computer, typing, and then getting frustrated with the internet connection as I tried to put what I had written online.
The evening brought the meeting with Paul that I had stayed in Mzuzu for. I met him and a colleague of his in a little restaurant on the edge of town. Both work as journalists for the MBC, in fairly junior positions. They told me that the source a lot of their news comes from websites of international news agencies such as Reuters, BBC, Sky and CNN. I asked if they were careful about interpreting news from sources such as CNN and Sky, but they didn't seem to be aware of the pro-business/US slant that these agencies often take.
We spoke a lot about freedom of the press here in Malawi, which seems to be a rather complicated subject. Technically the press is free, and journalists are free to print what they like. The two men told me that journalists have to "be careful", however, with what they write, as sometimes journalists who are overly critical of the government can be harassed. There are two independent national newspapers, The Nation and The Daily Times, which are relatively free to print what they like. The main reason the two men gave for the press not being free is the difficulties related to obtaining information about government activities. They said that most journalists use human rights NGOs as their source of information on things like government spending.
As employees of the government-owned national radio station they said that they are not at all free to say what they want. The government regularly issues press releases which they are obliged to broadcast. The content of these releases often bears little relation to the truth, they said, although because of their junior positions they cannot ask what is true and what is exaggeration or even propaganda. Obviously their radio station is also never critical of anything the government does.
Our conversation drifted on to my old favourite topic: NGOs. I asked their opinion without offering my own, so that they would not be influenced in any way. They said that although they believe that NGOs do a lot of good work in Malawi (which apparently has the world's highest concentration of NGOs) they have a lot of issues with how they are run. The first problem they spoke of is the now almost clichéd issue of the new, shiny white Land Rovers that all NGO workers seem to own - why not buy something simpler and cheaper and use the money to help those who it was given for? Their next criticism was that some parts of Malawi have huge concentrations of NGOs while others have none. The places that have most NGOs are urban centres like Lilongwe and Blantyre, or beautiful, touristy parts of the country, like Nkhata Bay. They said they suspected that a lot of the NGO workers are happy to work in places in which it is relatively easy to live. The parts of the country with no NGOs are those with bad road access, no electricity, and which are far from any cities. These areas are also clearly those which are in need of most help.
Another issue with the uneven distribution of NGOs throughout the country is that there is often much overlap between the agendas of NGOs in areas where they are plentiful - some towns have three NGOs doing the exact same work. The journalists questioned whether it would not be better if two of those three organizations left and implemented their program in an area where their work was not already being done. They also said that many NGOs list some of these more rural areas as having a project there, but that the reality is a little different. Chiefs from small villages regularly complain that they have seen that a particular NGO is working in their area, on paper, but have never heard form them, or even seen anything being done in the area. Finally, they said that the problem of projects being abandoned is particularly bad in Malawi. They said they know several derelict buildings around Mzuzu which were once occupied by an enthusiastic NGO, who have since left, presumably leaving whatever work they had started as a waste of time.
The men were much more enthusiastic, however, about Malawi's prospects for the future. They said that the new president has made some economic reforms to liberalize the markets and move away from having parastatal bodies controlling the economy. He has also helped farmers by heavily subsidizing the price of fertilizers. The president and several of his senior ministers have previously held high positions in the World Bank and the IMF, and so the men felt that they have good ideas as to how to run an economy of a developing world country. President Muntharika has connections with the Taiwanese government, having lived there for a few years, they said. As a result a lot of Taiwanese aid has flowed into Malawi since 2004, although not without the usual strings being attached. Taiwanese companies have been given many of the contracts for road building around the country, so a lot of this money flows (indirectly) right back to Taiwan.
I asked them if they thought it would not be better if African companies were employed to build these roads, but received the usual answer: "We don't have the companies, or the expertise; it's better that foreigners build these roads for us". This attitude, which I have met everywhere in Africa, absolutely infuriates me. It is this kind of defeatism, coupled with the inferiority complex it represents that is holding Africa back from meaningful economic progress. Africa has universities which can produce engineers who can easily form companies which, in time, could build roads as well as any international company. The problem seems to be that there is a widespread belief that African companies cannot be trusted to build a road that lasts, so contracts are awarded to companies from countries which have been "good" to the government, in whatever way. There may be some truth in the fact that African companies aren't as reliable, but I firmly believe that that is purely because they have not been allowed to develop naturally because of unfair market conditions. If, for example, a country decided to only award road building contracts to domestic companies, then these companies would flourish and develop, competing with each other to become every bit as effective as the international companies which have effectively had a monopoly previous to that.
We talked about African politics, discussing the governments of Zimbabwe, Libya, Uganda, Kenya, Congo and Rwanda, which was very interesting. Once again I was impressed by how tuned in the average African is to regional politics (although as journalists I suppose it was their business to know about such things). In general I have found Africans to be a lot more aware of what is going on in their continent politically than most Europeans are about Europe. Once again I found myself growing sleepy, a combination of being tired from my travels and being used to getting up with the sun. We shared a taxi home, as they said that Mzuzu can be quite dangerous after nightfall.
