Archbishop Thomas Luke Msusa of the Catholic Church Archdiocese of Blantyre says Malawians are still finding the going tough due to economic hardships and are far from the ‘promised land’ flowing with milk and honey.
The cleric said this in an interview on the sidelines of the Archdiocese of Blantyre adopt a seminarian dinner and dance fundraising gala in the gardens of his residence in Blantyre on Friday which targeted to raise about K94.6 million.
Msusa said since the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) issued a pastoral letter titled ‘The sad story of Malawi’ in February this year, little or nothing has been done to address challenges facing Malawians, including erratic availability of fuel and rising prices of commodities such as fertiliser.
He said: “Bishops have done a lot. We speak, but, who is coming out to challenge the situation? We don’t see anybody.
“The only feedback we got [after pastoral letter] was the applause from people, but after that, nothing happened and even from the government we haven’t heard anything.”
In the pastoral letter, the Catholic bishops noted that instead of arriving in the biblical ‘Promised Land’ of Canaan, the Tonse Alliance administration has taken Malawians to Bagamoyo, a town on the east coast of Tanzania where a slave lost all hope of being free again.
Speaking during the gala, former Reserve Bank of Malawi governor Dalitso Kabambe, who was the guest of honour, echoed Msusa’s sentiments that Malawians are reeling under economic hardships.
He said it is the first time since independence in 1964 that Malawi’s economy has grown by about an average of one to two percent for a period of four to five years. He said this situation has worsened Malawians’ poverty levels.
Kabambe, who is aspiring for the UTM Party presidency, said: “This is the first administration which has borrowed more than any other administration in the past and it’s on record from K4 trillion to K15 trillion in four years. It has never happened.
“This is also the first time we have seen the rising inflation from seven percent to 33 percent, rising annually. That’s why there is pain and anger out there that Malawians are suffering.”
In his remarks , Archdiocese of Blantyre Vicar General Father Boniface Tamani called upon politicians to work together, saying if they make selfish decisions people will continue suffering.
He appealed to all political party leaders to put the country first and their ambitions second or third ahead of the September 16 2025 General Elections.
In the pastoral letter, the clerics said their engagements with President Lazarus Chakwera yielded nothing while poor governance had worsened the situation than it was in June 2020 when Chakwera and the Tonse Alliance triumphed in the court-sanctioned fresh presidential election.
By design, a pastoral letter gives an honest critical analysis of the socioeconomic and political situation of the country. On March 6 1992, ECM released the infamous second pastoral letter, Living Our Faith which preceded a sweeping wind of political change, marked by the massive transition from one party era to multi-party democracy.
