Ministry, Asian business community agree on dialogue

Ministry of National Unity, the Asian business community and civil society organisations have agreed to resolve emerging racial discrimination challenges through dialogue.

The agreement was made during a meeting yesterday in Lilongwe between the ministry and the stakeholders following a letter from Malawians of Asian descent requesting a meeting to discuss racist slurs against them.

Minister of National Unity Timothy Mtambo, who convened the meeting in camera, said key issues bordered on the public anger against the Asian business community, xenophobic attacks, land issues and the painting of the community with one brush as corrupt based on arrests of some individual suspects.

He said he was encouraged to listen to the Asian business community committing to integrate with the entire society for coexistence.

Mtambo said: “It was a very productive meeting where I saw people acknowledging that indeed, as a country, there are some issues that we need to address.

“Right now, we are appealing to those with concerns to write the ministry instead of suffering in silence, what we need is to coexist through dialogue and this is just the beginning of a series of dialogue meetings.”

The minister said other issues tackled included the Asian business community’s alleged ill-treatment of Malawian workers by paying  them low wages and salaries as well as the poor working environment that Malawians are subjected to.

Mtambo said as part of the roadmap, the meeting agreed to document the issues and hold a national conference to discuss them openly so that a final solution is found.

In an interview after the meeting, Lilongwe Asian Business Community chairperson Manzoor Bheda said one of the things they highlighted was the public’s tendency to paint every Asian citizen with a brush of corruption and bad societal issues.

He said: “We feel that just like everybody else, we should be recognised as individuals with different specific characters. There is a whole lot of spectrum of characters within the Asian community, not everybody is exactly the same.

“We believe that corruption is wrong, we believe in the rule of law. We believe that some of us, having lived in Malawi since the 1800’s, are part and parcel of Malawi. Let us be judged with our individual merit.”

Bheda said they acknowledge there are serious problems that need to be resolved and that they are here in Malawi to stay.

Malawi Civil Society Black Economic Empowerment Movement coordinator Robert Mkwezalamba said their assessment indicated that the meeting was fruitful since it is based on  honest discussion and that they were looking forward to more engagement to find a lasting solution for coexistence.

In the past month, there has been public concern over some Asian business community members who are accused of corruption involving billions of kwacha of public resources.