I ruffled more than a few feathers

My entry last week on Chakwera’s rants and another piece on MPs not living up to expectations attracted some feedback which in the spirit of fairness I will share with you dear readers this week.

Dear Moses,

I like reading opinion columns such as yours: Word on the Street in the Weekend Nation and other columns in Malawi News. However, I have been compelled to comment a bit about your article titled Chakwera’s rants which was published last week.

I followed Dr. Lazarus Chakwera’s speech in Parliament on Monday closely and I hope it will not be fair to judge his response to President Peter Mutharika’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) like you have done.

I understand that there are many who do not understand Dr Chakwera well and may be you could be one of them. Dr Chakwera does not like looking at evil and keep quite. His leadership style and approach to certain things are with strong-attitude-motive. Dr Chakwera calls a spade a spade and evil by its name. He gives a dog the name it deserves and he has no diplomatic names for bad things.

I digress. But coming back to his response to Sona, I think for a long time, Malawi has had no opposition leader who is strong, fearless, and straight forward-minded as Chakwera. Even John Tembo was not like that during his rein as leader of opposition in Parliament. At least Gwanda Chakwamba was fearless, hard-worded speaker, and he made Bakili Muluzi term much harder only that Muluzi was too clever enough to bring down his strongest opponents. We all know what happened when he divided the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) into two camps. After Gwanda, Chihana was another strong-worded politician. But Muluzi was up to his task as well and he almost killed Aford.

Currently, the problem with APM, is that he cannot afford to tame Dr Chakwera. APM and Chakwera have two different ways of doing things, two different political backgrounds and Dr Chakwera easily finds many loopholes in APM’s speeches every time and this gives Dr Chakwera an added advantage when responding to his State of the Nation Address.

One other thing that is clear here is that Chakwera is a Pastor, an ordained man of God with a successful track record as a church leader who did not fail in church management and leadership. Chakwera is an achiever; he has never failed in his efforts.

You also must know that Dr Chakwera is not a politician per say, he was groomed to be a leader in both spiritual and political arena.  As a true and strong man of God he is fearless. True men of God speak out without waiting for a day to break, the example of Biblical strong leaders who feared nothing, are many from Moses, Elijah, Elisha, David, Samuel, Mordecai, Daniel, and many more……..but one thing you must know, is that whenever they ruled, nations were delivered from evils brought in by these self-styled politicians.

In conclusion, Chakwera offered many solutions in his speech and he gives solution to many challenges facing Malawi today, but misunderstanding him, makes some to believe that he offers no solution whenever he is responding to President’s speeches.

Reverend James Mwale,

Lilongwe.

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On MPs are you living up to expectations?

Moses,

You wrote in your column Word on the Street: “We know times are hard, but should it really take MPs three months to discuss and pass a National Budget?” For your interest, here is some information on the just-opened 2017/18 Budget Sitting of Parliament: official opening: 5 May 2017. Effective start of business: 8 May 2017. End of 2017/18 Budget Sitting: 30 June  2017. Since you seem interested in how the business of Parliament is decided, you might want to find out about how the Business Committee determines the agenda or Order of Business that goes on the Order Paper.

There is never a Budget Sitting that is purely about just the budget. There are always Bills and other business to transact that is just as relevant to Malawians.

By the way, Mr Phiri, We do try to do the needful – at least not everyone of us is out to do Malawians down! Equally, I thought you may be interested to convey an accurate picture to your readers, e.g. that the Budget Sitting is two months long not three.

We all of us must strive to do the needful – politicians as well as the media.

That’s my two-pennies worth. Thanks and good day.

Honourable  Agnes NyaLonje

Mzimba North