{"id":77861,"date":"2019-05-11T06:37:48","date_gmt":"2019-05-11T04:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=77861"},"modified":"2019-05-11T06:37:48","modified_gmt":"2019-05-11T04:37:48","slug":"apam-snubs-peter-mutharika","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/05\/11\/apam-snubs-peter-mutharika\/","title":{"rendered":"Apam snubs Peter Mutharika"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Macdonald Thom:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Association of People with Albinism (Apam) has said it will not accept security gadgets which President Peter Mutharika donated to them recently because they have a label \u201cAPM cares\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last week, Mutharika donated 1,600 security gadgets to Apam.<\/p>\n

But upon discovery of what has been written on the gadgets, the association has rejected the gadgets.<\/p>\n

Apam Deputy General Secretary Ian Simbota said they are against the personalisation of the gadgets.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt is one big question that I think a serious organisation like Apam shouldn\u2019t just look at it and let it go. We are not ready to look as if we were siding with anyone,\u201d<\/em> Simbota said.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIf you look at guns, which the police and the Malawi Defence Force have, you will not find anything like \u2018APM cares\u2019, you will not find anything like \u2018Bakili Muluzi cares\u2019 or \u2018Bingu cares\u2019 because they were bought within the time such leaders were in power. So, why are those security gadgets written \u2018APM cares\u2019? We, as an association, can\u2019t subscribe to that and we are not ready to use that and until it becomes neutral.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the 1,600 gadgets were being donated, Minister of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare Cecilia Chazama said the ministry is grateful for the donation as it will play a role in the implementation of the National Action Plan on Persons with Albinism.<\/p>\n

Efforts to seek Chazama\u2019s reaction on Apam\u2019s latest position proved futile as she could not be reached on her mobile phone.<\/p>\n

Presidential Press Secretary Mgeme Kalirani was also not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Defenders Coalition Chairperson Timothy Mtambo Friday said they support the decision Apam has made.<\/p>\n

“We commend them for the decision. The national action must be funded. Nobody should be using people because of their vulnerability. For us, it is very difficult to isolate personal money from that of government. Somebody should not use national resources for campaign. That’s actually unacceptable. APM did not take the money from his pocket,”<\/em> Mtambo said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In February, in a meeting which Mutharika had with people with albinism, he made a number of promises, one of which was to purchase security gadgets for them.<\/p>\n

K3.1 billion is needed for the implementation of the National Action Plan on Persons with Albinism.<\/p>\n

Recently, government released K250 million towards the implementation of the action plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Macdonald Thom: Association of People with Albinism (Apam) has said it will not accept security gadgets which President Peter Mutharika donated to them recently because they have a label \u201cAPM cares\u201d. Last week, Mutharika donated 1,600 security gadgets to Apam. But upon discovery of what has been written on the gadgets, the association has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":77865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77861","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\/77861","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=77861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77866,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77861\/revisions\/77866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}