{"id":80774,"date":"2019-07-19T12:13:41","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T10:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=80774"},"modified":"2019-07-19T12:13:41","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T10:13:41","slug":"president-peter-mutharika-hires-6-malawi-defence-force-chiefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/07\/19\/president-peter-mutharika-hires-6-malawi-defence-force-chiefs\/","title":{"rendered":"President Peter Mutharika hires 6 Malawi Defence Force chiefs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Pilirani Kachinziri:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/peter-mutharika.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-74179 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/peter-mutharika-300x259.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"259\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/peter-mutharika-300x259.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/peter-mutharika.jpg 423w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>President Peter Mutharika Thursday appointed Tri-Service Commanders and Deputy Commanders of Malawi Defence Force (MDF).<\/p>\n<p>A statement from the Office of the President and Cabinet says the appointments are in line with Section 4 of the Defence Force Act (2018).<\/p>\n<p>Mutharika has appointed Major General Alick Bentry Mhone, Army Commander (Landed Forces) with Brigadier General Davis Sesatino as his deputy.<\/p>\n<p>Airforce Commander is Major General Andrew Lapken Namathanga while Brigadier General Ian MacLeod Chirwa is his deputy.<\/p>\n<p>Maritime Force Commander is Brigadier General Francis Blessings Kakhuta Banda while Colonel Richard Tobias Chagonapanja is the deputy.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe Commander of the Malawi Defence Force remains General Vincent Nundwe with Lieutenant General Clement Namangale as Deputy Commander of the Malawi Defence Force,\u201d<\/em> the statement reads.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Last month, Mutharika appointed Nundwe as the Army Commander and subsequently promoted him to the rank of Army General to replace Griffin Spoon- Phiri.<\/p>\n<p>Spoon-Phiri is the President\u2019s National Security Adviser.<\/p>\n<p>Chancellor College-based political analyst, Ernest Thindwa, Thursday said the MDF appointments reflect the chain of command in the army.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe timing of the appointments shows that it is part of a strategy to ensure that the army remains loyal to the regime,\u201d<\/em> Thindwa said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Presidential Press Secretary Mgeme Kalilani said the appointments are in line with the new Defence Force Act, which Parliament passed in 2018.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe Act provides for restructuring of the Malawi Defence Force ( MDF) and ushers in a new administrative and operations organogram which creates three military service departments within the Malawi Defence Force, namely the Infantry, the Navy and the Air-force ( some call the Infantry; Lands, the Navy; Maritime),\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Kalilani said the overall aim of the new structure was to allow more growth and further expansion of the MDF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Pilirani Kachinziri: President Peter Mutharika Thursday appointed Tri-Service Commanders and Deputy Commanders of Malawi Defence Force (MDF). A statement from the Office of the President and Cabinet says the appointments are in line with Section 4 of the Defence Force Act (2018). Mutharika has appointed Major General Alick Bentry Mhone, Army Commander (Landed Forces) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":80782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80774","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\/80774","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=80774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80783,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80774\/revisions\/80783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}