Mr Muluzi, who dubbed himself the "political engineer", sold Mr Mutharika to Malawians as the "economic engineer" and did all the campaigning on behalf of his protege - so much that it was a complete surprise that the two fell out immediately after the elections.

BBC: Bingu wa Mutharika (back) and Bakili Muluzi (front)

In a very uncomfortable way, Sandy points out the dangers of our devotion to economic efficiency: when you engineer your economy to cut out waste, you design with lowest costs in mind, and redundancy is eliminated.

FORBES: Gas Rationing: New Yorkers, Welcome to the Third World

But anyone who thought that there was going to be a slowdown in infrastructure build-out this year, as the government tries to engineer a soft landing to its spectacular economic growth, need only stare at the Shanghai skyline for a few days, if not just a few minutes.

FORBES: Shanghai Times Op-Ed Links Govt Corruption to Income Inequality

His main theme is the imperative for the government of putting the promotion of economic growth at the heart of everything it does, to re-engineer the British economy so that it does not stagnate in a Japanese way forever.

BBC: Cameron: No more dotting of 'i��s'