Thousands of people from all walks of life, led by former president, Bakili Muluzi, Wednesday started paying their last respects to veteran politician, Gwanda Chakuamba at Comesa Hall in Blantyre, but conspicuously missing were representatives from government.<\/p>\n
In an interview yesterday, government Spokesperson who is also Minister of Information, Malison Ndau, sounded surprised that there were no officials from government at both College of Medicine when the remains were being collected as well as at Comesa Hall where viewing of the body commenced around 10 o\u2019clock in the morning.<\/p>\n
On Monday, President Peter Mutharika, whose administration also paid for the cost of medical expenses when Chakuamba was sent to India for almost a month, directed that Chakuamba be accorded full military honours.<\/p>\n
Ndau, however, said a number of ministers including Foreign Affairs Minister, Francis Kasaila, had already been to the village of the veteran politician adding that government was making all necessary preparations to send a delegation.<\/p>\n
He could, however, not say whether Mutharika or his vice, Saulosi Chilima, who is reportedly in Rome would be available during burial on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are yet to be told as to who will represent government whether the President or he will delegate someone, possibly this evening [last evening] we should be in a position to know as who from the government side will lead the delegation,\u201d Ndau said.<\/p>\n
He added that Parliament was also making preparations to send a delegation and gave assurances that officials should start trickling in at Comesa Hall by today.<\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists outside the Hall, Muluzi described Chakuamba as a passionate person who was determined to accomplish whatever he endeavoured to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know when some of us were young and joining politics in the early days of multiparty before independence, we found Gwanda already in politics. I worked with him personally. I worked with him in the Malawi Congress Party but also in the cabinet. He was a very passionate person in whatever agenda he wanted to fulfill.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomebody who was loyal to the Ngwazi and thereafter he was president of Malawi Congress Party, he was very passionate and dedicated. Dedication in whatever you do when a person delegates you and that is very important in life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Some of the notable faces during viewing of the body included former ministers and parliamentarians like Brown Mpinganjira, Moses Dossi, Kamuzu Chibambo, Clement Khembo and serving First Deputy Speaker Esther Mcheka Chilenje, ex politicians Ziliro Chibambo and Peter Fatch.<\/p>\n
The death of Chakuamba also seem to have united political parties in the country as different parties such as MCP, United Democratic Front(UDF) as well as the ruling Democratic Progressive Party(DPP) had some of their members clad in their party colours at the ceremony.<\/p>\n
Chakuamba, who died at Blantyre Adventist Hospital of a heart problem on Monday at the age of 82 years, will be buried at his home, Chinyanje, Traditional Authority Mlolo in Nsanje.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thousands of people from all walks of life, led by former president, Bakili Muluzi, Wednesday started paying their last respects to veteran politician, Gwanda Chakuamba at Comesa Hall in Blantyre, but conspicuously missing were representatives from government. In an interview yesterday, government Spokesperson who is also Minister of Information, Malison Ndau, sounded surprised that there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34477,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34472\/revisions\/34477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}