Govt has Failed—MCP

Predictably, leader of opposition in Parliament Lazarus Chakwera has said the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration has “miserably failed” to deliver on its socio-economic promises to Malawians contrary to President Peter Mutharika’s claims.

In a hard-hitting speech in response to Mutharika’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) themed We Have Delivered presented in Parliament on Friday, Chakwera said the President was delusional in declaring that his party had delivered on its party manifesto.

Instead, he described the Mutharika administration as nothing but a cancer that is hindering economic transformation.

Members of Parliament (MPs) on the government side made feeble efforts to interject Chakwera, who is also president of Malawi Congress Party (MCP), even as opposition legislators had a field day of clapping hands and urging Chakwera on.

He charged that the government had lied in promising that it would fight corruption, improve living standards, transform the economy, provide good governance and ensure equity and equality.

Said Chakwera: “Mr. Speaker, Sir, let me put it plainly and bluntly: the cancer hindering the transformation of our nation is the DPP. Everything else is but a symptom of this dysfunction promoting paralysis.

“As such, only a fool would believe that the good old pillars in this government can turn a disease into a cure for their own failed leadership. And only a fool would believe that the young soulless agitators in this government can turn a disease into a cure for our failing economy.”

He said there is no need for Malawians to keep DPP in power as it has failed in the four years it has governed the country in the three key categories of often feeding Malawians lies and stealing from them and torturing them.

Stated Chakwera: “DPP is a party of untruths. In its manifesto, it promised prosperity for all, but is only delivering prosperity to a select few; promising justice for all, but creating a State where Chasowa and Njaunju’s murders remain unsolved; promising security for all, but failing to even provide security for its own parliamentarians and its own President during the Sona.”

He said his detractors, who accuse him of merely criticising government without giving it solutions, should know such solutions and suggestions are in all his speeches in the House, adding that the government is too arrogant to adopt any of them.

Chakwera said his administration would embrace good governance where institutions will be measured by a credit score, mobilise financial resources needed to carry out the key investments in infrastructure and services and spend public resources judiciously on the key priorities, among others.

But in an interview after Chakwera’s speech, DPP spokesperson Francis Kasaila described the sentiments by the leader of opposition as an attack on his party, saying the promises he has made to change the nation’s fortunes if voted into power are actually the things that DPP is carrying out on the ground.

He said: “It is unfortunate that the leader of opposition, instead of concentrating his energy on substantive issues, is concentrating on attacking DPP.

“That does not win him votes from Malawians. It only demonstrates what he is as a person. All he has said he will do while in power are the same things we are implementing on the ground.”

On his part, leader of People’s Party in the House Ralph Mhone reiterated Chakwera,’s sentiments, describing DPP as a failed entity with broken promises and full of lies as there is nothing much to show development-wise.

He said the President’s government has failed to effectively replace the old Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis) through which public fraud was rampant.

Mhone added that the government’s failure to fight corruption is evidenced by 72 files lying at the funding-starved crime-busting Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) offices without action, saying youth unemployment had escalated for lack of strategic projects..

On the rule of law, he gave the DPP government low marks, saying it has turned out to be the one that flouts the country’s laws and only applies the laws whenever they suit them by not respecting a constitutional separation of powers in governance. n