Heed bishops’ advice, govt told

Civil society organisations and opposition political parties have urged President Lazarus Chakwera and his administration to take heed of the advice from Catholic bishops contained in their pastoral letter issued yesterday.

In the letter, titled ‘The sad story of Malawi’, the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM), which comprises all the Catholic bishops for the eight dioceses plus two auxiliary bishops, argue that Malawians are worse off now than they were four years ago when the Tonse government came into power.

Reacting to the letter, Human Rights Defenders Coalition chairperson Gift Trapence said this was a wake-up call for Chakwera to act, rather than being sympathetic to failures or those engaged in corruption.

He said the bishops have not raised new issues as these have been outstanding governance issues for the past four years.

Said Trapence: “What the bishops have done is to keep on reminding the leadership about the status quo of the issues.”

He said the President needs to be radical in resolving the governance lapses raised by the bishops.

“President Chakwera should wake up from the slumber.  It should not be business as usual, rather, shift from being slow in decision-making to being radical and action-oriented on the ground,” said Trapence.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesperson Shadric Namalomba said the bishops speak the voice of God and are prophetic.

He said: “This is exactly what we have been saying, the leadership doesn’t know how to govern, or what is important for Malawians. It’s clueless, we are now vindicated.

“When you go through the pastoral letter, you do not see any hope for Malawians. All we need is next year to go en masse to the polls and vote the government out. We cannot have this government continue because that will mean hunger to continue, price escalations, and poverty worsening.”

United Democratic Front spokesperson Yusuf Mwawa also applauded the Catholic bishops for denouncing poor governance.

He said: “We call upon the current government to live up to their promises, to bail out the masses from acute suffering. The public is further reminded of our choices during an electoral process.

“It is high time the nation differentiates between mere political gimmicks and doable action points.”

Officials from Malawi Congress Party and UTM Party, two key partners in the Tonse Alliance, did not respond to our questionnaires despite several reminders yesterday.

But responding on behalf of the government, Minister of Minister of Information and Digitisation Moses Kunkuyu said the pastoral letter has been received with “appreciation, wisdom and humility”.

“We acknowledge some cited challenges and remain determined to use the bishops’ wisdom to continue building on the progress the country is making.

“As a government, we will not engage in item by item response with the clergy in public. Instead, we will not get tired utilising the engagements that we do have with the clergy from time to time,” he said in a brief statement yesterday.

The letter, which came out on the second Sunday of Lent, was read out in all Catholic churches yesterday.