MP bemoans loss of ‘paradise’

MP for Likoma and Chizumulu Islands Anita Thundu on Tuesday lamented the looting of public resources at Capital Hill which she said would have turned her constituency into a paradise if some of the money had been channeled towards developing tourism.

Thundu was particularly disheartened at reports that officials within the Ministry of Tourism swindled the ministry of millions of kwacha through dubious payments to their own companies for services they did not render to government.

“With the money stolen in the ministry, the long awaited jetty could have been constructed at Likoma, tourism would have brought money to the island. My constituency should have been a potential paradise but that will not be done,” Thundu said.

She said government was not doing enough to uplift the island into the tourism paradise it deserved to be and numerous requests to construct the jetty where passenger steamer MV Ilala could be docking have fallen on deaf ears.

The MP also asked the Ministry of Education to convert Chipeta Community Day Secondary School into a girls boarding secondary school on the island because no girl from the island had been selected to a public college for the past six years.

But Deputy Minister of Education, Science and Technology Agnes Chatipwa said the CDSS could not be converted into a girls secondary school because secondary school going boys would have nowhere to learn.

“Perhaps the MP should take the proposal of constructing a girls’ hostel at the CDSS to the district council so it could benefit from the Local Development Fund window. A hostel would allow girls to concentrate on their studies,” she said.

Likoma and Chizumulu islands have a population of about 10 000, according to the Population Census of 2008.