By Vincent Gunde
Muvi wa Chilungamo pressure group has asked President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera to stop his Crop Inspection Tours which has already taken him to the southern districts of Malawi and is expected to do the same in the centre and north to save money for very important projects.
The pressure group says Tropical Cyclone ANA besides claiming lives of people washed away bridges and roads saying these need to be fixed with the money that can be saved from paying allowances to those accompanying President to his crop inspection tours and fuel.
The group has advised the Malawi leaders to be ashamed of the state of affairs of their country that it was crowned the Paramount Chief of the poorest countries while them are very rich enriching themselves at the expense of the poor in the country.
Commander in Chief of the pressure group, Bantu Saunders Jumah, said Malawi has reached a time to get out of the league of the poorest countries, it has everything to make it rich and what it is lacking is to have leaders who can stand courageously telling the world that Malawi has minerals, come and buy.
Jumah has asked President Dr. Chakwera, the Vice President, Ministers and senior government officials to trim local and international travels so that the money saved is used to build bridges and roads destroyed by Cyclone ANA and subsidizing prices of commodities.
He observed that salaries of the president, the Vice President, Ministers and senior government officials are very high and if there can be good gesture to cut their salaries by some percentages, this can be proved that they are standing together with the suffering Malawians.
The Commander in Chief reminded Malawians that Madam Dr. Joyce Banda reduced some percentage of her salary per month and cut her foreign trips to subsidize commodity prices advising the Tonse Alliance government to borrow a leaf from that.
….’’The President must introduce austerity measures to save money to uplift lives of the poor and not keeping silent as if all is good on the ground,’’…..said Jumah.
Jumah has since advised President Dr. Chakwera to be always watchful with his inner circle, they are planning for his downfall citing the Salima-Lilongwe Water way project which was given to a Malawian, Simbi Phiri and has now been taken over by an Australian company at 313 million US Dollars.
He warned the President that through this loan, poor Malawians will suffer most paying taxes to 2047 and will be used as a litmus test contributing to his downfall advising him to carefully study the contract and the trust his Administration has over an Australian company.
Jumah has again reminded President Dr. Chakwera that Malawians are angry with his government for doing the very same things as previously done by the DPP saying Malawians expected a complete departure from the DPP but the same is still happening and will judge him in the 2025 elections.