By Vincent Gunde
Malawians following social media platforms have praised Mchinji North East legislator Anthony Masamba for entering Parliament with the agenda to serve the people not for petty allowances as some legislators have been demonstrating for years.
Many people in Malawi are joining politics not for servant leadership but to become rich saying this is the reason that the country has for 61 years of independence been labelled poor by politicians while them are billionaires.
A case in point is President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera, Malawians voted for him on trust on the 23rd June, 2020 that he will demonstrate true servant leadership coming from the church and being an ordained Priest but the opposite has escorted him back to where he was.
President Chakwera and his MCP ministers have become millionaires over a night, they have borrowed from the international community a total of K24 trillion in just 5 years of power raising national debt to K28 trillion leaving the country the country and citizens poor.
In his contribution to the debate on an amendment bill seeking to revise Value Added Tax (VAT) rate, Masamba rose in Parliament speaking from deep down his heart that Members of Parliament (MPs) are enjoying full lucrative salaries and fuel benefits while they are in the House legislating imposing punitive measures on the poor citizens.
Masamba suggested that MPs can consider to trim their benefits so that the money be channeled to equally important projects as part of supporting the new government austerity measures which President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika is leading by example.
“Why can’t we trim our own salaries and fuel allowances to support government austerity measures to address the challenges our country is in such as fuel, food, forex, and fertilizer,” he suggested.
Masamba has become the first legislator speaking from opposition benches to suggest measures that can make government bail out the citizens from the hard situations they are facing for government to address the challenges.
President Professor Mutharika in his quest to address the challenges the country is in, he announced austerity measures which his government is to undertake in order to fix the country economically and politically one of it being the issue of wage bills.
Mutharika announced to the nation that government has stopped recruiting and promoting people in public service as one way of addressing austerity measures to see to it that every sector of government is functioning efficiently.
He rejected the offer of a presidential motorcade which President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera was using preferring his own personal motorcade a development which has made millions of Malawians to describe Mutharika that he has come to serve and not milking the citize
