Peter Mutharika, President of Malawi HARDtalk

That's all from me. Now on BBC News, HARDtalk.

By some measures Malawi is the world's poorest

country, and is heavily dependant on aid.

My guest today is Malawi's President Peter Mutharika.

Why can't it shape of this legacy and how much of its failures are

down to bad government? President Mutharika,

welcome to HARDtalk. You have said, it is obvious that we

are facing is various problems in Malawi. Let us all of us come

together and deal with the problems that have this country on the verge

of collapse. I said that for three reasons. First, when it came to

power last year, there was absolutely nothing in the Treasury.

All of the money had been siphoned out by the previous government and

my predecessor, Joyce Banda. That is why. $30 million of public funds

misappropriated. I have to say that the former president, Joyce Banda,

has not been found personally guilty of anything. Pending investigation.

Her government. The administers and party officials in the government

that were involved. And the investigations are still going on.

Secondly, because of that the donors have left. They provided a large

percentage of budget support. They left. Third, the worst fires in --

floods in the history of Malawi and they worst drought. The floods wiped

out half of the crops. There were three big shocks that hit us. That

is why I was saying it was a serious matter. On the verge of collapse.

But what do you mean by that? Bankruptcy? No, hyperbole. Is a

situation, Sirius. We will be recovering. But I'm the first

president in the history of Malawi to face these three things that have

hit us. I'm sure within a year or so we will be back where we were

before. You have mentioned those three reasons but I have to put it

to you that the problems Malawi are facing are problems of longer term

significance. For example, UNICEF's report says that 47% of children in

Malawi have stunted growth. According to World Bank estimates

from 2014, your GDP is $250 per year per capita, which by that measure

makes Malawi the poorest country in the world. 85% of the rural

population, where most people live, face increasing poverty. 47%, 50% of

the country's 17 million people live on the poverty line. I could go on

and on. These are very serious challenges they face which are not

as a direct consequence of the three issues you have outlined. Imagine

the three in the context of your question. When I said the country

was on the verge of collapse, that was hyperbole. It is not. But you

are right. These are objective conditions which have existed since

we became independent in 1964. Indeed, poverty, exclusion of women

and children, youth, people in rural areas. We're working on those

things. And I will be telling you in the course of this discussion some

of the measures we are taking to correct and to improve our

conditions in Malawi. Right. Malawi has been independent for more than

50 years, as you have said. The EU's head of cooperation said in

September this year that Malawi is a peaceful society not hampered by

ethnic tensions. It is blessed with freshwater, fertile land, a lot of

enterprising people. Malawi can and must do better. What is keeping

Malawi behind? He says that governance issues are at the heart

of Malawi's development talent. Governance issues. That is one point

of view but it is more than that, I think. Governance, of course... What

does he mean by that? Do you know? Corruption in country. There is

corruption. But we are fighting that. Recently I announced three

pillars. Patriotism, integrity and hard work. Those most found our

national ethic and everyone is embracing that. If there is

patriotism and integrity, corruption would not take place. We are

fighting corruption. You are talking about Cashgate, the problem that

happened in 2014, the misappropriation of funds related to

political campaigning. I must put it to you that as one academic at the

university of Malawi said this year, 35% of government funds have

been stolen in the past decade. This is something that predates Cashgate.

No brother, the late president, when he was president from 2004, that

takes us back to a decade ago. -- your brother. There must have been a

lack of governance and corruption going on under his watch. And before

that. Before that, under the previous government. And what you

are saying is true. Corruption has been going on for decades. There is

always corruption in every society. Our problem is that we are not able

in a situation when there are limited resources... When there is

corruption, there is nothing left. Maybe 20% of funding goes through

corruption, incompetence and poor accounting. But that is what

happens. We are taking measures to stop corruption. I will give you the

chance to say that but I have to put it to you and I'm putting your late

brother's record to you, because you were also a Cabinet Mr for part of

the time under him. You were a professor of constitutional law for

40 years working in the US when your brother became president. When that

happened, you went back to Malawi and became his chief adviser and

venue became Justice Minister, Education Minister and most latterly

Foreign Minister. And you know that your brother was criticised for some

excesses. I will give you one example. He bought a private jet for

$15 million. Are you still using that jet? Not at all. It was bought

by the government. It was to carry the president around. It was very

inconvenient for the President to travel. That is why the government

bought the jet. By the way, almost every African government has a

private jet or they will hire one. Where is that government jet? You

have to ask Joyce Banda. She sold it. We don't know to whom and where

the proceeds went. That is part of the whole Cashgate scandal. Given

that you have just agreed that Malawi faces so many challenges and

you do not have the money and you have talked about how the government

coffers are very depleted, is it sensible for you, when you went to

the UN meeting, to hire a jet to take you from Malawi to buy, we knew

there got a commercial jet? -- to Dubai where you then got a

commercial jet? There was no other option. How would I get to Dubai

from Ethiopia? Every African president went to New York. I flew

to Dubai, where I connected with Emirates. That was the only way to

make the connection. You say that commercial travel can be

inconvenient for ahead of date but when this was put to you in the

press, you became rather annoyed. -- for a head of state. You also said

that Malawi should not advertise its poverty to the world. No, I said

that it was lies that I had taken the whole village in one jet. No, I

said it was not true. I was more annoyed, I was just firm. I don't

like politicians and journalists outright lying when they don't have

the facts. So that is what happened. This time I travelled commercial. It

took 25 hours to get from Malawi... And when I get back, it will

probably take me another 25 hours. The police chief said in August that

corruption is omnipresent and is visible in every sector of society

in Malawi. As you walk down the streets, in the civil service and in

the private sector. It is something which is rampant, so the question

then is what are you doing about it? Because people are looking to

see whether the president is going to be putting some of these excesses

we have discussed behind him. Yes, indeed. I will do my best. Festival,

we have the anti-corruption bureau, which is functioning very well. I

have just funded at 160% more than the 4 so it can have enough staff

and lawyers and investigators. We fully support it. I have funded the

prosecutions about 160%. They now have the resources to go after these

people. In actual fact, the anti-corruption bureau is engaged in

civil education. Every department... We establish and

integrity system within the ministry where people are educated about

anti-corruption. And I think it is going to work but it will take

time. So it is being prevented and prosecuted. And you have changed the

leader, the head of the anti-corruption bureau. But one

woman from the University of Miami says that efforts to root out

corruption in Malawi do what sticks because the existing institutional

milieu makes it almost impossible to institute changes that can

effectively stamp out corruption. -- University of Malawi. How serious

are you about reforms or is this just window dressing? I don't have a

defeatist attitude, saying that we will give it. That is what it is

saying in that statement. That is wrong. It is very difficult. It is

endemic and deeply rooted but we are fighting. People are being

prosecuted. For example, 15 people had been found guilty of Cashgate.

Everyone has been found guilty. No person has been acquitted. But

Cashgate is just one part of the problem and you are focusing on that

but I'm saying it is more rampant. Cashgate is at the centre. Malawi

will feel the effects of Cashgate for many years to come. It is much

more serious than I think western people think. Now, coming back to

other corruption, we are prosecuting more cases of corruption. People are

being arrested. People employing ghost workers have been found out.

But it will take time. Because it has been such a big problem over so

many years. And such a problem to the extent that although you rely

for 40% of your budget on foreign aid, the international donor

community has said we don't trust the government in Malawi, so aid has

been suspended pretty much, causing you huge problems because you lack

this money. As you said at the outset, you don't have the aid that

you want in your budget. And that is blaming the wrong

people. Cashgate was the previous government. In the end, people are

suffering. Many unfortunate things are happening and it is a

challenge. Your hospitals are running out of medicine? We are

trying to replenish them but it is a real challenge and we are working

extremely hard. We are turning our private sector money into hospital

money and so forth. And we really hope it will work, but what happened

was, I made the decision to leave at a time when 60 million US dollars

had been depleted. So you say it is not fair to punish your government

when you have only been in power since last summer. But there is

money going at eight to Malawi but it is bypassing the government and

going directly to those in need, so what is the problem -- aid? I think

more must be done in the context of applying aid. I think this

undermines the national government. When aid comes, it should be in the

hands of the government, and the government must, in fact, it is in

violation violation of your sovereignty? They have diverged at

it from departments that were controlling it and that is what is

happening. I think it will be good in the long-term, but not now. To

look at the argument in a different way, you know the debate now in

Africa is very much saying, we have to look at our own means. If you

look at Agenda 2063 which is an economic blueprint for Africa which

the United Nations has approved, they have said let us focus on the

mystic resource mobilization and the former president just stepped down,

and he said, this will effectively put us out of business but you are

still saying that Malawi is dependent on aid and harkening back

to an older way of thinking. Malawi will be self-sufficient in five

years. We are expert based in terms of economy, we are an exporting

nation. We do need assistance during this transfer period, that is all.

2-3 years. You give it five years? More or less until the end of your

mandate weighs you can get rid of aid completely? -- your mandate. You

can get rid of aid completely? The aid has got to go. I think the

donors are aware of it and we, the recipients, are also aware. That

dependency cannot continue forever. We want the transitional period. You

have made that clear. If you look at your means, 60% of foreign earnings

come from tobacco production and I put it to you, that this has come

with some consequences for you, of which you are aware. For example,

one and a half million children work as labourers on the tobacco farms

and that is according to the global health foundation figures in 2012

and you don't dispute that. Is that something that is sustainable and is

that a good way for you to make money? Children working on tobacco

farms? We're going to stop that, it is true. We have problems with

trafficking. We are trying to stop that and we will. Unfortunately,

tobacco is the only commodity in the world that is not subject to

international committee agreement. So the buyers are deciding how much

they will pay and how much they're going to buy. They have absolute

control. The country has absolutely no control. This year they have been

buying less so our earnings went down by 8%. But do you want to see

growth in your tobacco farming production, because I put it to you

that this is something which, as you know, the head of the World Health

organisation, she says this is a terrible industry and she would like

to see the tobacco industry go out of business. She talks about

children getting tobacco sickness, because of handling the tobacco

plants. Yes. And this is responsible for communicable diseases and all

the rest of it, but you are saying Malawi wants to rely on this trade?

Know, I want to say that at the moment, that is the main income

earner and we must get fair prices while we are diversifying -- no. We

are building up agriculture and other things. I know it is a dying

industry. What about sugar production? That is something you

want to move towards but we hear reports of smallholders being

evicted by wealthier owners. So when you do that, you need to make sure

that land rights are honoured. Are you doing that? We're in the process

of introducing new legislation in terms of land law. Let me come back

to sugarcane, that is not quite true, whoever wrote that, we are

moving toward sugarcane to innovation and what we are doing,

there will be small time farmers who will be given a hectare each to grow

sugarcane, ten hectares each, and they will be mid-level farmers --

there will be mid-level farmers were given 14-15 hectares -- who are.

That report is completely wrong. You are diversifying your props, as you

said, but Land Net which is an NGO which defends people in Malawi says

land grabbing is an issue in Malawi. In the past four years, thousands of

farmers have lost land which benefits multinational companies.

Who is grabbing? They are saying agricultural businesses accounting

for the displacement of smalltime farmers. You do not accept that?

Some of these civil society organizations, we have to be very

careful, the way they analyse things. All land is leased from the

government for a certain amount of time. We have restrictions, but...

You are saying there are no cases like the one I have referred to?

There are instances. Maybe there are instances of people being evicted

but the government will take action. I will give you an example from

August last year, someone named Peter said he lost three hectares

which was his livelihood. He said now he is suffering because he works

on other people's farms to earn living. This is from a legitimate

publication? Yes. I would be careful. I won't go into it, but I

think you should be careful with these publications. Would you

investigate? Will you say, my government will make sure, whether

you doubt this report are not, that there are not people like Peter, the

person who has been quoted, who are going to suffer as a result of your

government's policy to diversify in this way? Maybe he does exist, but

if he does, we will investigate but this is the first time I'm hearing

about it. Finally Mr President, people will say you just came to

power over year ago and they want to see that President Peter Mutharika

is series about the reforms to drive a corruption, he is series about

diversifying the crop base and tried to demonstrate to the international

community that good governance is happening. Are you confident you

will be doing that quickly enough to make sure the people of Malawi can

get the help they need and the development and progress they need?

We are. I had the public service reform commission, and we have

representatives in Kenya, New Zealand, Australia. I am confident,

that we are going to turn the country around and that is why I am

here. I am here because I'm going to bring investment. There are already

investment coming in, lots of investment coming in. In a decade or

so, Malawi will be a different country and I'm very excited about

it. President Peter Mutharika, thank you for coming on HARDtalk.

The rain from Storm Desmond may have long gone but some rivers

in parts of the country can take a while to rise as the water floods

Keep an eye on the floodline number: 034 5988 1188.