Archbishop Thomas Luke Msusa of the Catholic Church has called for unity of purpose among Malawians if the country is to develop.<\/p>\n
Msusa said this at Ndata in Thyolo district during a memorial service for former president the late Bingu wa Mutharika who died on April 5 2012.<\/p>\n
The ceremony also celebrated the life of the fallen president five years since his sudden demise.<\/p>\n
Msusa observed that this year\u2019s memorial took place 25 years after bishops of the Catholic Church authored a pastoral letter which condemned the iron-fisted one party rule.<\/p>\n
The pastoral letter, among others, called for freedom of speech, an end to corruption, nepotism and the protection of the rights of women and children.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut as we observe this silver jubilee, have we as a country met these demands? As a country we are not yet there that is why we call upon leaders to unite this country as the man whose life we are celebrating today used to say \u2018Tiyende pamodzi ndi mtima umodzi[Let us move with a unified purpose]\u201d Msusa said.<\/p>\n
Msusa also noted various developments that the late president initiated in during his term of office.<\/p>\n
He said the late Mutharika transformed this country within the eight years he was president.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have this culture here in Malawi that we, most of the times, acknowledge a person\u2019s importance when he is gone. But let me state here that the man Bingu wa Mutharika was a visionary [leader] who always encouraged Malawians to dream in colour,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Msusa later commended President Peter Mutharika for working hard in making sure that the country\u2019s harvest this year is safeguarded by deploying Malawi Defence Force soldiers to various exit points to prevent smuggling.<\/p>\n
In his remarks the memorial service\u2019s organising committee chairperson Francis Mphepo concurred with Msusa saying the late Mutharika transformed the country especially in agriculture.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring his tenure [Mutharika\u2019s], Malawi was food secure and the Farm Input Subsidy Programme then helped eradicate hunger at both household and national levels,\u201d Mphepo said.<\/p>\n
Bingu succumbed to a heart attack on April 5 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Archbishop Thomas Luke Msusa of the Catholic Church has called for unity of purpose among Malawians if the country is to develop. Msusa said this at Ndata in Thyolo district during a memorial service for former president the late Bingu wa Mutharika who died on April 5 2012. The ceremony also celebrated the life of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44105","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\/44105","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=44105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44107,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44105\/revisions\/44107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}