Data gathered by M’mbelwa District Council (Mzimba) shows that at least 25 people per day seek travel documents from the council to travel to South Africa, a development that is worrying authorities.
Mzimba district commissioner (DC) Thomas Chirwa said on Thursday most of the migrants are young people in the age bracket of 15 to 25 and with the potential to contribute to the development of the district and the nation at large.
He said the high migration rate of people to South Africa is retrogressive to development as young people constitute a good percentage of the country’s productive population.
Said the DC: “Although the current economic profile of Mzimba is better than other districts in the country because of the money these people bring from South Africa, it is the education index that bears the negative impact of this migration.”
He said many girls tend to drop out of school and get married to men working in South Africa for material gains and that such marriages do not last long.
“But these men fail to sustain their marriages because once they migrate to South Africa, they stop supporting their families,” said Chirwa.
Canaan Sakala, one of the young men seeking to travel to South Africa, told Malawi News Agency (Mana) that most people from Mzimba choose to go to the rainbow nation because of lack of economic opportunities in Malawi.
