Pressure mounts on government to deliver
Pressure continues to pile on government to deliver with fresh calls for President Lazarus Chakwera to address the country’s persistent socio-economic challenges or resign from office.
In the latest call in Mzuzu yesterday, a grouping called National Congress Movement staged street demonstrations to force the President to resign or call for a referendum over the same challenges.
Led by activist Gomezgani Nkhoma, the group delivered its petition to the M’Mbelwa District Council’s Mzimba North office on Tuesday, but held the protests yesterday.
The petition reads in part: “You have failed to make drugs available in our already dilapidated health centres, innocent lives are being lost.
“You have failed to create conducive environment for domestic and foreign businesses to thrive, no wonder businesses are closing down, and jobs being lost.
“You have failed to devise a clear economic policy that would halt soaring of essential commodities and rescue Malawians from this economic quagmire.”
The recent demonstrations in Blantyre, Zomba, Lilongwe and Mzuzu come against a background of epistles by Episcopal Conference of Malawi, Human Rights Defenders Coalition, Nkhoma Synod of the CCAP and Malawi Human Rights Commission calling for recovery strategies to bail out the economy and ease the burden faced by the masses.
The common concerns have been high cost of living, fuel and forex shortages, corruption, unemployment and the need for a clear economic plan to lift people from plunging further into the abyss of poverty.
While stating that the Tonse Alliance administration is facing such challenges due to the combined effects of the Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, political analysts say Capital Hill is not sending a message of being in control.
Blantyre-based political analyss Ernest Thindwa said government is lacking clear strategies on how to address the concerns.
He said: “They said electricity woes will end by December, but now that has changed. The fuel crisis has been there, but no strategy to deal with it. The same with the mess in the subsidy programme. People want their pain alleviated, but there seems to be no solutions.
“Corruption has been a problem, and we have people in government accused of corruption. So people will continue crying. They will continue piling pressure, that means more criticism for government until things change for the better,” he predicted.
On his part, analyst George Phiri said the current regime has moved away from its earlier stance of a listening government, and implementing its promises.
“They are not listening to suggestions anymore. The President speaks one thing and does something different. That is now leaving the nation at crossroads,” he said.
Minister of Information and Digitisation Gospel Kazako could not be reached for comment yesterday, but last week, he said government has a plan to resolve the challenges and that it was unfortunate that some people do not seem to understand the gravity of the issues facing the country.
