President Peter Mutharika Sunday called people who accuse him of sidelining the Northern Region in government appointments and resource allocation as \u201cstupid\u201d.<\/p>\n
He was speaking at Katoto in Mzuzu City on his arrival to the region where he will perform several official and political duties for about a week.<\/p>\n
The Public Affairs Committee, at its 5th All-Inclusive Stakeholders Conference held on February 17-18 at Sunbird Mount Soche in Blantyre condemned nepotistic tendencies by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cDelegates observed that most challenges faced in Malawi on political governance hinged on lack of effective and efficient reforms\u2026.Some of the factors that came out as [a] stumbling block to good governance included regionalism, tribalism, nepotism, politics of retribution, lack of substantive devolution, handouts and excessive powers of the Office of the Presidency,\u201d reads Pac statement.<\/p>\n
But Mutharika, citing the example of the recent appointment of Charles Mhango as Attorney General, said his appointments are on merit and that competence is what matters to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am from Thyolo but there is no single Cabinet minister from Thyolo. And those that accuse me of nepotism and segregation ndi zitsiru <\/em>[are stupid] and don\u2019t know what they are talking about. They are wrong, as wrong as they can be,\u201d said Mutharika, who then fished out a paper from his pocket and named some Northerners who occupy top government positions.<\/p>\n \u201cThe North is just nine percent of Malawi\u2019s population but it has 33 percent representation in the Civil Service Commission. For me, Malawi is my country and I don\u2019t care where one comes from,\u201d Mutharika said.<\/p>\n Mutharika also disclosed that out of the 235 positions that he appoints in government from Grade E to Grade A, 83 are from the Northern Region.<\/p>\n On Development projects, the President said his government remains committed to ensuring that people from the Northern Region enjoy quality life, just like their counterparts from the Southern and Central regions.<\/p>\n He said resources have been secured for construction of the long-awaited Mzuzu Airport, which he has promised to be of international standard.<\/p>\n In his welcome remarks, DPP vice president for Northern Region, Goodall Gondwe, who is also Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development, reiterated that the region is benefiting more in terms of development than in administrations that came before the DPP.<\/p>\n He, therefore, appealed to the people to rally behind the DPP.<\/p>\n While in the Northern Region, Mutharika will inaugurate Karenge Water Supply Project in Chitipa and officially commission Mzimba Integrated Urban Water and Sanitation Project, which are being implemented by the Northern Region Water Board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Peter Mutharika Sunday called people who accuse him of sidelining the Northern Region in government appointments and resource allocation as \u201cstupid\u201d. He was speaking at Katoto in Mzuzu City on his arrival to the region where he will perform several official and political duties for about a week. The Public Affairs Committee, at its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":50807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50805","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\/50805","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=50805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50808,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50805\/revisions\/50808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}