Opposition leaders have described President Peter Mutharika\u2019s national address as petty and a departure from ruling Democratic Progressive Party\u2019s (DPP) manifesto.<\/p>\n
Mutharika who on Monday made the address on state controlled Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) Radio and Television touched on a number of areas including the strides his administration is making to keep the country food secure as well as outlining some solutions to the prolonged power outages and water crisis.<\/p>\n
But in his reaction to the address, Malawi Congress Party (MCP) President Lazarus Chakwera laughed off the statement saying government seems to be busy prescribing different medicines to challenges facing the nation without giving hope to Malawians.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a far cry from what the people expected. This is a far cry from what the DPP promised in its manifesto. I think they just want to be seen to be doing something but without a clear direction and vision,\u201d Chakwera said.<\/p>\n
The MCP leader added that the statement by Mutharika was best suited for Parliament saying members could have had an opportunity to ask questions on some of the gaps in the speech.<\/p>\n
Chakwera also referred to the address as a repetition saying Minister of Agriculture, George Chaponda, also raised similar sentiments in his statement in the house yesterday afternoon.<\/p>\n
People\u2019s Party Vice President for the North, Kamlepo Kalua, also trashed Mutharika\u2019s address claiming that the statement was only made just to hoodwink Malawians that the DPP administration is doing something about the numerous challenges rocking the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis government borrowed money saying it needed to purchase maize for starving Malawians but look what is happening; people are failing to buy the maize because of the exorbitant prices and people have stopped going to Admarc not because they have enough food but because they can\u2019t afford it,\u201d Kalua said.<\/p>\n
On his part, leader of Transformation Alliance, Moses Kunkuyu, said there is nothing new in the address by Mutharika.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe President talked to us on petty issues, talking of exercise books procurement to as little as 12 boreholes. No tangible mention of the universities\u2019 issues,\u201d Kunkuyu said.<\/p>\n
Mutharika outlined issues such as procurement of medicines worth K10 billion which he said will be arriving in the country in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
Mutharika also reiterated that there is enough maize stock in strategic grain reserves and that no-one will die of hunger under his watch.<\/p>\n
On energy, Mutharika admitted that the country, over the years, did not invest enough in the generation of power which has led to the power blackouts but was quick to add that his administration is working on short and medium interventions to deal with the problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Opposition leaders have described President Peter Mutharika\u2019s national address as petty and a departure from ruling Democratic Progressive Party\u2019s (DPP) manifesto. Mutharika who on Monday made the address on state controlled Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) Radio and Television touched on a number of areas including the strides his administration is making to keep the country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36028","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\/36028","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=36028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36030,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36028\/revisions\/36030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}