By Hopewell Chin’ono
Malawi has become the butt of jokes on South African television after it held a full military parade for its president, who was travelling to South Africa for medical check-ups.
The 86 year old President Arthur Peter Mutharika receives his medical care in South Africa, yet before leaving one of the poorest countries in the world organised an elaborate military send-off.
Military parades are not free spectacles. They require the mobilisation of troops, transport, logistics, fuel, security coordination, ceremonial preparation, and the deployment of military equipment and personnel who must rehearse and participate in the event.
All of this consumes public funds that come directly from taxpayers in countries where governments already struggle to provide basic services.
In fragile economies such as Malawi, where hospitals face shortages of medicines, equipment, and trained personnel, spending resources on ceremonial displays exposes a troubling set of priorities.
Instead of investing in strengthening domestic healthcare systems so that leaders and citizens alike can receive treatment at home, scarce resources are used to stage pageantry designed to project authority and prestige.
Ironically, the very ceremony meant to symbolise state strength only highlights institutional weakness. A president is honoured with a military spectacle while travelling abroad for medical care because the public health system in his own country cannot provide it.
That contradiction is precisely why such scenes have become a subject of ridicule across the region.
South Africa’s eNCA television juxtaposed the military pageantry given to the Malawian president with how South Africa’s own president, Cyril Ramaphosa, leaves when he travels to other countries.
He leads the continent’s most industrialised economy, yet he departs in a simple and understated manner, walking to his plane with his jacket in hand and without any elaborate military parade or ceremonial spectacle.
The contrast highlights how poorer countries sometimes spend scarce public resources on costly displays of pageantry, even though such ceremonies require soldiers, equipment, transport, and logistics that all cost money.
What’s wrong in doing that? Is it a taboo in South Africa? I believe that the president has his own entitlements and privileges. And those entitlements and privileges cost money and are not cheap. So it’s entirely up to him if he wants to enjoy them or not and where and when he decides to enjoy them, he is not doing any wrong.