{"id":9503,"date":"2015-09-30T10:31:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T10:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=9503"},"modified":"2015-09-30T10:31:16","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T10:31:16","slug":"shepherd-bushiris-crusade-boosts-business-in-mzuzu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2015\/09\/30\/shepherd-bushiris-crusade-boosts-business-in-mzuzu\/","title":{"rendered":"Shepherd Bushiri\u2019s crusade boosts business in Mzuzu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite coming under heavy criticism from other quarters, a snap check by The Daily Times <\/em>on Monday revealed that the coming of Prophet Shepherd Bushiri of the Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) to Mzuzu had a positive impact on businesses in the city and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n

During the random interviews, a majority of businesspeople confirmed to have benefited from the visit.<\/p>\n

Grand Palace Hotel Manager, Francis Salia, said he was overwhelmed by the demand for services over the period.<\/p>\n

He said over 500 guests dined at the hotel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must say that Bushiri\u2019s coming had a very positive impact on us. We [made] business and we were quite busy. So, yes, we smiled all the way because our bookings also rose,\u201d said Salia.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe climax of it all was the dinner itself because you can agree with me that feeding 500 people to a meal of not less than K9 000 is no mean achievement. It\u2019s something that comes once in a blue moon so we are excited that we benefited from his coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salia also disclosed that over 10 deluxe rooms which cost K55, 000 per night were occupied by members of the entourage.<\/p>\n

\u201cMind you, these were cash payments and they were taking rack prices without any negotiations which means that if we didn\u2019t have adhoc bookings we would have made more money,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Things were no different for Mzuzu Shoprite. A senior official, who asked for anonymity, said the chain store saw an influx of customers in the three days Bushiri held his crusade.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a standard store. So, most people who attended the crusade opted to come here for their shopping. We were busy, the shop was full though I cannot confirm to you the actual figures because it\u2019s not within my mandate to do so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Small and medium enterprises also had a fair share from the event. Taxi operator Harry Banda said his daily proceeds trebled during the three-day miracle crusade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have not attended any of his sermons but I must say that Bushiri\u2019s coming has been a blessing in disguise. As taxi operators, we did not scramble for customers as we do oftentimes. Business was smooth yet rewarding. On each of the days, I made three times more than what I get on a normal day,\u201d said Banda.<\/p>\n

Another business person, Dafless Nyirongo, said within the three days of Bushiri\u2019s stay in the city, her fast foods business transformed tremendously.<\/p>\n

Nyirongo, who said she normally makes K50,000 on daily basis at her grocery store, was able realise K200, 000 per day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite coming under heavy criticism from other quarters, a snap check by The Daily Times on Monday revealed that the coming of Prophet Shepherd Bushiri of the Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) to Mzuzu had a positive impact on businesses in the city and surrounding areas. During the random interviews, a majority of businesspeople confirmed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9503","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\/9503","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=9503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9513,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9503\/revisions\/9513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}