JOBS GALORE FINALLY

If this tickles your fancy start applying now. The jobs are coming.

Following my blog ‘On the cheap’, some clever chap in government—after I had written directing him to my blog site [I really need to learn how to twit]—has taken the initiative and spoken to the Americans. It is possible he was even accorded an audience with Obama. Now, some back actors [these are combined tractors with a plough at the front and trencher at the back], mechanical shovels and some bits have since been "cascaded" to Malawi. No don’t confuse these with the tractors from India [or is it Iran?] These are real American war surpluses. Never mind their sources. Get this:

1                      Parliament—the very last one—passed through a rush-rush bill on the creation of the National Irrigation Corporation [NIC]. That now is in position. If it tickles your fancy—that is if you are the office boy [girl] type—go ahead and apply for jobs in that organization too. We need you there if you are of the right and YAMBA [Young Ambitious Malawian Business Achievers]-supportive mindset!

2                      The Americans and a few friends—after a few visits by Malawian agricultural, irrigation and engineering delegations to their war scrap yards—managed to gather the things we had asked for.

3                      After the mandatory ‘radioactive testing’—remember some of these things were used in the military theater against Saddam Hussein—the equipment was passed and is now at Beira [while the Mozzies figure out to let them in by road or by pontoon to Nsanje World Inland Port].

So where are the ‘agriculture-related jobs’ going to start appearing? The order is not important though we may be guided by the supply and availability of fuel because—just like American Hummers—these back actors were built to be fuel guzzlers. So we shall need to be as close as possible to existing fuel supply lines. However, the main guiding principles will be twofold:

1                      Create jobs—any jobs—because the best measure of GNP [gross national product] on the HDI [Human Development Indicator] is national productivity. And generally we haven’t been doing very well there since Kamuzu abandoned ship in 1994. The Japanese can boast of grow and economic success because they manage close to 75% national productivity. The Malawian productivity—after subtracting three months in the fields pursuing ‘rent seeking’ production [because according to J. Michael Friend in ‘WTO: Trade and Development’ everything you produce to eat and not export is rent seeking], the other eight months are spent on kachasu drinking and dancing in funny traditional gear and then is here is aimless pursuits of most urban Malawians—hovers around 30% only! A few more aimless jobs digging irrigation trenches that may be used to grow exportable crops will not hurt; especially if real and nominal national productivity is pushed up to around 60%.

2                      Generate a new sense [or the outlines thereof] of national strategic independence [in another blog I define ‘strategic independence’ as that sense of achievement over-and-above political independence, usually associated with greater economic independence and ability to influence global political and economic direction and sometimes—as wrongly assumed by those who have the capability—through ‘military power’. If we work hard at these irrigation trenches we may just have such power to ‘tell off’ a few superpowers around us. Money gives power to be independent. Thus, the battlefront between government and NGOs in Malawi today is who ought to finance our economic needs: self-reliant autarky [government position] or planned begging [NGO vision]. Autarky on an empty stomach or chewing on empty gums is quite hurtful pursuit. It runs against the grain of how successful countries—including the increasingly ‘strategically independent’ economy of China—managed to achieve it. China—since Deng Xiaoping—became increasingly inward looking not merely to cut itself from external influences but also to create the vital economic capability [human capital, self-reliant mindset and realigned development infrastructure] critical to become economical independent to arrogantly ‘tell off a few Western interferers’ without losing face. Now, even American industry is describing a rat rut into China: the new factory of the global village. How does Malawi begin to define a ‘rat rut’ leading to our strategic independence one day? On the other hand, ‘planned begging’ is a bane even on a mildly devout Christian viewpoint. When you disrobe yourself and get ‘shacked’ for it is rather dishonest to scream ‘Rape!’ thereafter!

Now, here is the trenching work plan. We will dig the first section of the national irrigation canal perpendicular to the NSR [New Shire River]. This is the fresh water source extending from the source of the Songwe River to South Marka in Nsanje. Because we are people driven—with a mission—we will not wait for the guys in parliament to finish huffing and puffing on the final nature of a NIC. Thus, the first lot of jobs in the offing—the only way forward—involves volunteers: show the politicians we are serious and capable of DIY [Do It Yourself].

Volunteers will clear bushes at soon-to-be-announced irrigation sites. Here your CV will be made up of: a burning desire to become a Yambakata, readiness to do hard and sometimes not-immediately rewarding work. No referees are required for this one. Former Kamuzu Youth Weekers are welcome—more as advisers on the ‘selfless self-help spirit engendered. Generally, this will be on the job self "mchokocho"! Remember, though: bring along a bag of ufa because it could be days while we are out there. Meanwhile let no cheap politician lie to you that this is modern Thangata or Kamuzu's "youth exploitation". It’s for you, and once again, early birds on the NSR will soon sing alongside Lawrence Mbenjere [you know the song]!

Second lot of jobs goes to electrical transformer winders. The way things are going in ESCOM we have to go DIY to the hilt. Not surprisingly there are bucket lots of you. For the last 20 years you have been making homemade MATRADAS [Malawi Transformers and Adapters] which have kept you busy behind the road signs saying "Battery Charge". The NSR Irrigation Project requires no fewer than 500 transformers—that ESCOM now on hand-to-mouth operations currently cannot afford—if we are to pump water up hill.

As an aside let me tell you of the things Africans do to themselves. Once in the 60s, an African leader went to Taiwan. While there, he met among other dignitaries a guy called K. T. Li—the author of a book: ‘The Economic Transformation of Taiwan’ who was also Taiwan’s Finance Minister; when that country was absorbing US ‘Marshal Plan’ style aid that never came to Africa. During one of those begging chats our African leader let it be known that Africa could not be irrigated because all our rivers sit in deep ditches and ravines. In turn Li wrote this story in his book—and the World Bank read it. Now you know why the World Bank has over the decades refused to extend irrigation-related loans to Africa. Africans abroad: Shut up and shovel down your Sushi with less difficulty!

So MATRADAS specialists we don’t need to see your CVs. Just bring yourself, your backside and your skills to a venue soon to be announced.

Third lot of jobs is for ESCOM—if they know their bacon. This project will need enough linesmen to run an electricity grid along the NSR. ESCOM don't tremble in your boots. This will not demand new power generation capacity—what with your underperforming 60Megawatt stories. Our vision requires just enough power to run our electric water pumps pushing water up to a miserly fifteen kilometers perpendicular to the NSR. At night mind you. We will require you work with us after 20:00 hours—when everyone with a legitimate claim to your current electricity capacity is now dozing off. So, there will be no serious issues about load shedding here. Let "industry"—or whatever was left after the IMF—and whoever else enjoys their current rights use the power before that. But after supper—peaking at 22:00 hours—we will crank up water pumps using your underutilized low-demand capacity and push water up our irrigation canals and the ravines that K.T. Li argued are ‘near to impossible to irrigate’. Thereafter, gravity will bring the water back into the NSR via a series of canal bypasses and "night time" irrigated fields! The beauty of this is that there will be more jobs and less time to gaze at the nightly moon. This will translate into high rural productivity for smallholder producers.

Fourth lot of jobs goes to seed factories. The NSR is a full 600,000 meters of fresh waterfront. Multiply that with a perpendicular depth of 15000 meters you have almost 900,000 irrigable hectares per quarter or 2,700,000 hectares per year. At 20 kilograms of seed per hectare 135,000 units of 20kg bags of seeds are required!

And guys if seed factories and suppliers show any signs of disorganization then here is another opportunity for YAMBA jobs. Set up your own seed packing factories and bugger the TRIPS [Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS] noise from WTO and the so called registered ‘seed suppliers’. We are on a trip here and no room for niceties—ask the Chinese how it is done. They did not rush to Morocco—like certain of our Malawian leaders—to sign the WTO agreement! To this day they are yet to sign because they have a mission to become a superpower and ‘patent-access limiting’ agreements only serve to delay what the West achieved through ‘free slavery’ [they have yet to pay reparations!]. We must ‘enslave’ their patents if we are to get anywhere. So while you are at this, don't just pack maize seed. Include mpendadzuwa and gontha. The English name for this grass is not known to me. But growing up in Thyolo—on the edges of tea estates—I came across this versatile grass that pigs simply love to eat. It is an adventitious vegetable: you cut it today and overnight it will have re-sprouted! And if, like me, you are observant it is also growing along the Limbe stream. For mpendadzuwa let's prove Sasakawa guys wrong—we will interplant it with maize in the processes trebling the harvest capacity of each irrigable hectare! This means Chitedze, NRC and Mikolongwe get crash extension officers' programs organized now. Thousands of those officers will be needed to practice this new MPA—the maize, mpendadzuwa and gontha—planting approach! Besides we need smallholders to learn new approaches to pig stall feeding and ensure pigsties are truly pigsties.

Who else hasn't got a job? Two opportunities appear here. Someone must find enough Land Rover chassis and axles. It is going to be ngolo galore, draw-oxen/ donkeys supply and training opportunities. The second opportunity is for someone to supply us with "cascade" oil and oil cake processing machinery. There is going to be just too much mpendadzuwa—it must be beneficiated at source. OVOP get your act right—bring in "utility models" in this area. Get out of those experimental trips responsible for those poor cassava traders at Bunda Turn off. For whatever it takes you created false hope and then abandoned those farmers who now must leave their land each day and waste time on that roadside!

Meantime someone please seriously supply us with piglets—not those NGO-funded "village scoundrel" projects in Neno the other year. We need real volumes—close to three million piglets per every six-to-eight-month's raising cycle. Besides we are not sequential pork and pig products producers. In one cycle we shall operate eight to twenty raising sets or 30 million piglets per shot! With each Chinese devouring 40 kilograms or a whole pig per year [see my blog ‘Gander is the Way’] we have a mammoth task filling up nearly 300 million Far Eastern bellies! The other day I popped into Shoprite and had my eyes nearly popped out when I saw Brazilian pork selling for MK1500 per kilo! Well at a mere MK800 per kilo while moving 1, 200 million kilograms to China I work it out the YAMBA has the power to have Malawi reclassified—overnight—into the "Economic Lion of Africa"!

But think of the number of jobs involved in slaughtering, processing and properly packaging three million fully grown pigs before dispatching the same to Taipei, Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul? It is jobs galore in the processing plants! But that too is to jump the gun because the YAMBA have the task to mould bricks and then build pig lots, abattoirs, install processing machinery and freezers. My master schedule calculations says to manage one container per hour—at 40 kilograms per pig weight—means 10,000 pigs must be processed per hour. By the way specialists I have spoken to have advised a pig can be cut into 17 different grades and quality in the process enhancing the revenue per pig from MK800 to the MK1500 the Brazilian pork is fetching!

Because live and/ or rotten pork doesn't market very well, there are more jobs in the logistics and transportation front. This will require freight forwarders, logistics operators and a whole new PEDC [Pork Export Development Corporation] with local and international branches—as part of a well organized JIT [Just-in-Time] based marketing strategy [see my blog ‘African Governance and the Changing World’]—into receiving markets for our pork.

I already can see—in addition to being the "Warm Heart of Africa"—Malawi being proudly called the first "Economic Lion of Africa". The latter is a "brainpower" act that goes beyond mere political platitudes. Someone get off your backside and talk to the Americans. The YAMBA need the back actors ASAP!

Please leave your comments below and/ or contact the author at zivaiclaude@gmail.com