Chikaonda tips govt on priorities
Press Corporation Limited (PCL) group chief executive officer Matthews Chikaonda has asked business journalists and the business community to focus on how realistic the new government should be regarding the programmes it is announcing in terms of service delivery.
Chikaonda, speaking at the fourth annual general meeting (AGM) of the Association of Business Journalists (ABJ) at Hapuwani Village Lodge in Mulanje on Saturday, said the focus should also be on the fight against corruption.
“Corruption is an evil and a complete disservice against development. We need to focus on it in terms of prevention but also the systems to punish and also bring to book those involved.
“On the economy, journalists should focus on how realistic government should be in the programmes that it is announcing in terms of service delivery in health, education. Those have gone down,” he said.
“The new government should ask that question and journalist should prod on what is that we have failed to do in the past and why. What formula do we have to improve the things going forward in the future for the same given tax base that we have in Malawi?”
Chikaonda, who heads the dual-listed conglomerate and is famous for a 10 point plan during the time he was finance minister, said there is need for the new government to think differently, as a problem cannot be solved using the same methods or level of thinking that created that problem.
“We need new methodologies to address these issues that have befallen Malawi for the past 50 years. It’s not a good picture we are looking at in terms of what Malawi has been able to deliver,” he said.
Chikaonda also said Malawians need to promote debate to encourage a better understanding of fundamentals and factors that have affected the country and have produced certain results that are not desirable.
President Peter Mutharika has promised to resuscitate the economy and has targeted a growth rate of 7.5 percent for the next five years.
“We plan to take a bottom-up approach that involves and directly benefits ordinary people. And we plan to deliver a people-centred economic growth at the rate of 7.5 percent in the next five years,” he said in an inaugural speech.
He said the government plans to ensure that every Malawian can afford adequate food, a decent house and a dignified means of earning a living.
“We want to make fertiliser subsidy available to all subsistence maize farmers. We shall continue to grow surplus food to bring down the cost of living. And we shall revive the Green Belt Initiative to make Malawi the breadbasket of Africa,” he said.
