Why Malawi Fails to Develop There are a number of reasons why Malawi fails to develop, but one of them is this: We don’t attend to serious investors. JTI deciding not to invest in cigarette processing because of “bureaucracy” that lasted four years. I am also aware of many initiatives that I have personally tried to facilitate that simply failed because “you hit a wall”. At the ECAMA conference, we had one of the Co- Managing Directors of Malawi Mangoes, a $50million investment who lamented that in Malawi, “we are doing everything possible to chase away investors Recently, I was assisting someone to get “connected to the powers” just for his team of high level investors to get an audience with the right people. After trying, I have failed. And this morning I got some e-mail which in part reads: Dear Henry, “I wanted to say thanks for the help with regards to the opportunities I wanted to introduce to Malawi. I unfortunately had a chat with my colleague who has finally indicated that he is scraping Malawi from his priority list.” (Below is the email he copied me on from the coordinator of the team of investors that got so frustrated until they had to “scrap Malawi from their priority list”) “Am writing to you with regards the above mentioned matter. We had managed to source some investors for Infrastructure Development Projects, Mining and other Industrial investment projects. However for them to be able to get an audience with the …… or any government authority has been a challenge. The investor was keen on investing about $ 4.3 Billion (United States Dollars). They had desired to visit Malawi to discuss on investing this money into the economy not later than 18 November 2014. They have been chasing up with me on the Government of Malawis position on their proposal which was submitted to the MTIC. Considering that the investor was not looking at Sovereign guarantees for this investment, the delays we have experienced may make then reconsider this position which may be unfortunate.” A friend of mine whilst he was in Germany, connected with some high level investors in wind and solar energy whom he connected to the then minister of ….. (and his ministry PS and other officials). He tried following up for about six months until the investor gave up! (I am also frustrated. Believe me, when I come to vent my frustration here on Facebook, it is mostly that my practical efforts on the ground are hitting blank walls. But I still have hope that some day, we might wake up)
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 07:47:40 +0000
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