Some Development Issues and Debates

On the billboard issue that carried a controversial religious message, i have noted several dissenting views... 1. Some are of the view that we must allow religious competition through negative marketing until the most negative wins against the meek. I find the above as naive and analogous to stirring a religious fight in a generally peaceful country. This is bad advice. 2. Some think the best is to leave those who provoke others alone, because in heaven God will punish provokers.... I find the above as ill advised. What would happen is that non action would pass as tacit approval of the provocation and over time these would multiply and a confrontation would become inevitable. We do not want such an avoidable future strife of a religious nature. We are a peaceful and tolerant nation yes and that is why we even elected Muluzi as president at a time when his religion accounted for under 9% of the nation's faiths. But this peace must be guarded

Greenwell Matchaya, PhD Email: Greenwellmatchaya@yahoo.com Malawi’s economy at present is between a 100 to 200 (or more years) behind many African countries and indeed behind advanced countries of Europe and North America. A simple economic growth calculation reveals that, to move from the current Gross National Income of circa $389 per capita to US$1037 per capita threshold for being categorized as a lower middle income country, and assuming the current 5% average growth    rates of incomes per capita, it will take Malawi at least 63 years. Similarly, under the same assumptions, it will take Malawi, 111 years, 165 years, 188 years and 306 years to reach levels of per capita incomes enjoyed by Ghana, Namibia, Botswana, and Germany respectively. This is unacceptable and we must collectively reduce these ginormous time gaps in less than two decades by doing business differently, or we will perish. The encouraging news is t