Not intimidated by the opulence and grandeur of Zomba State Lodge, the security detail of the Head of State, a child invited to a Christmas party hosted by the first couple asked a question we all have been failing to ask.
\n\u201cWhat can we do when we don\u2019t have electricity?\u201d a seven-year-old girl asked President Peter Mutharika during a Children\u2019s Christmas party.
\nThe President was caught off guard.
\nFor a minute, there was a deafening silence from the audience of parents and guardians. The President posed a bit, firmly holding the podium table, before answering, in a frantic attempt to ease the tension that was in the air: \u201cThat\u2019s a tough one. I didn\u2019t expect that one.\u201d
\nWe, however, failed to establish the name of the girl, as State House was not cooperative when we asked for details of the child.
\nUnlike in their homes, the children were treated to fun games, a three course meal and, of course, uninterrupted electricity supply.
\n\u201cFirst of all, electricity is a problem in Malawi right now\u2026 but we are working on that but buy candles, lamps\u2026,\u201d Mutharika said in his attempt to answer the brave little girl.
\nMutharika added that water levels are low and that, due to this, not enough power is being generated.
\nHowever, the President forgot, for the first time, to talk about the 55 megawatts (MW) standby emergency generators which he promised to commission on December 24 [yesterday] and 31 [this coming Sunday] 2017 .
\nThe President has on more than two occasions promised that the generators would arrive in the country by December.
\nIn a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) between the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) and Aggreko Power Solutions, suppliers of the generators, the 55MW of diesel generators are supposed to be installed at Kanengo and Chichiri substations, with the capacities of 20MW and 35MW respectively.
\nAccording to the PPA, Aggreko was supposed to commission a 20MW generator by December 24 2017 at Kanengo in Lilongwe while the commissioning of the 35MW generator at Chichiri in Blantyre was scheduled for December 31 2017.
\nBut the generators, our sources say, are yet to be shipped in.
\nThe first couple advised the children to remain focused on their education to achieve big things in life.
\n\u201cWork hard in school. Respect your parents and fear God because that is the beginning of wisdom,\u201d Mutharika said.
\nThe President and the First Lady also posed for photographs with all the children that converged at the Christmas party, an occasion spiced up by, among other things, recitals of poems and singing debates.
\n\u201cEducation is very important,\u201d Mutharika said briefly, encouraging the children to be disciplined and focused while avoiding anything that could distract them from achieving their goals in life.
\nPresidential Advisor on Religious Affairs, Apostle Timothy Khoviwa, said it was the first time for Zomba to host such an event.
\nLast year, a similar event was held in Mzuzu for children in the Northern Region. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not intimidated by the opulence and grandeur of Zomba State Lodge, the security detail of the Head of State, a child invited to a Christmas party hosted by the first couple asked a question we all have been failing to ask. \u201cWhat can we do when we don\u2019t have electricity?\u201d a seven-year-old girl asked President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":56152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58077","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\/58077","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=58077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58080,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58077\/revisions\/58080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}