Malawi is a country with nothing; its main export is tobacco. 36% of government revenues come from aid agencies and western donors; it literally is a country that would collapse without Western aide. Yet Joyce Banda the president refuses like all her other predecessors to take the necessary steps to free Malawi from this bondage.

Instead she accepts all conditions from the West in order to have a functional government. Two weeks after the currency devaluations Joyce Banda had to accept other conditions from the West in order to receive more donations, she had to agree to decriminalize homosexuality, a key demand from the donors.

What are these necessary steps that would have freed Malawi and the rest of Africa in the long run, obviously factors that the IMF would never demand because it is not in Western interest for black people to be prosperous, deeds speak louder than words.

The first necessary step before even talking to the IMF would have been to drop barriers to entry in all sectors of the economy, banking, telecommunications, setting prizes of agricultural goods. Secondly have a simple flat tax system that is not complicated. Having freed up the economy, then Joyce Banda should have talked to the IMF.

Freeing up an economy is having the good sense to trust your people, something lacking in Africa, it is people that build up economies, economies are for the people, free up the market, a demand the IMF will never make, it is not in their interest to see a prosperous Africa.

By freeing up the economy the people will solve the problems of the economy not experts who are not actually involved in the economy you cannot know the needs of a fisherman unless you do the fishing, don’t get in his way. Let the people choose who they want to buy their fishes from, if the government decides who can and cannot fish that would be considered evil, if I have a boat and want to fish why stop me?

Yet the same is not held for banks, let anybody open a bank, the people will decide the banks they want to put their money in, it should never be the government, what is the difference, if a mans talent is banking not fishing, if he can not find a job with a bank, he should be allowed to start his own, that unfortunately is freedom, that Western countries are not free, does not mean Africa should not be free.

The same with telecommunications, if a man is not a good banker or fisherman, if he cannot find a job with a telecommunications company, if he has the ability let him start his own company, an illegality in all western societies has the great divide in wealth. Depreciating a currency without increasing economic potential is a recipe for hardship in the short and long run, the IMF knows this.

Africa is a continent that needs freedom the most for the simple reason that it is behind all other peoples in terms of economic development. Freedom means trusting the people and the people being allowed to trust in themselves. One must trust themselves to be a farmer, same as one must trust in themselves to be a capable banker or run a manufacturing firm, governments should keep out of the way of people who trust in themselves, you learn to trust yourself by doing. All the capital that Africa begs for has been created by other human beings, human beings who trust in their abilities.

Joyce Banda should have introduced initiatives for people to trust in themselves, and then she should have contacted the IMF, one would have thought she would have learnt from the past, and understood that if people are free to do, they will do, if they are not free to do, they will not do. No peoples of this world should have 36% of their government budget coming in the form of donations, come on Africa we can do better than that.

I have insisted for a long time, the IMF can never help Africa, theirs is to make demands that have never worked, just free up the people, it is a lack of trust from African leaders, trusting white advisors than their own people that has got Africa into a mess.

Malawi must now face the ridiculous position of laws been dictated to them because they are poor, homosexuality has nothing to do with economic development. It would have been far more important for Malawi to have freed up its people before making laws dealing with homosexuality, strangely the same donors who care so much did not demand Malawi to free up its people to create wealth.

Western African Agenda is simple, be like us or else, if Malawi is not proof enough, then one is pretending to be blind.