Mutharika cancels trip to India
In a rare and last minute development President Peter Mutharika has cancelled his scheduled trip to India where he was expected to attend the Third-India Africa Forum Summit(IAFS III), State House Press Secretary, Gerald Viola, has confirmed.
Mutharika was supposed to leave the country tomorrow to join other African heads of state and government in New Dehli. The summit is scheduled for October 26-29 2015.
Viola said that Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, George Chaponda, is expected to represent Mutharika.
On Thursday Chaponda disclosed that four ministers that include himself, ministers of Finance and Economic Planning, Goodall Gondwe, Trade and Industry, Joseph Mwanamvekha, Agriculture and Irrigation, Allan Chiyembekeza, and some officials from the ministries are among the delegates expected to attend the summit.
Chaponda also said that a maximum of three people who are experts in different fields are expected to accompany the ministers.
According to Chaponda, there are also business people from the private sector who are sponsoring themselves since this is a business focused summit.
Chaponda emphasised that taking along business people on the trip will help the country clinch more deals that will benefit the private sector.
He said among other important issues, Malawi is expected to negotiate for another line of credit that will go towards improving the efficiency of water supply in the country as well as enhancing the capacity of community technical colleges.
Malawi has however benefited about K85 billion ($152.4 million) through separate lines of credit.
The Africa –India Summit will be held under the theme “Partners in progress: Towards a dynamic and transformative development agenda”.
This is comedy of the highest order. Why cancelling now, when a week ago this very due was banging tables and shouting saliva out insisting that he will go? This is really cheap and comic politics, aimed at fooling the public into believing that he is a listening and caring president. An arrogance linger in the DPP and the Mutharikas, that only death can cure.
You are very stupid
And we pray that death should cure this arrogance, as it did in April 2012.
Despite the cancellation, the hotels that were booked will still need their cancellation fee to be paid. As I understand it in India as is the case in the West, it means an equivalent of one night payment.
Now considering that our president always travels with a band wagon of security guards and a unit of Malahko wa Alomwe kinsmen, that’s still a substantial amount of money enough to run a rural healthy centre for a full year.
It’s madenning to think of how wasteful, narrow minded and arrogant our so called leaders are. When did they realize that the economy can’t sustain this extravagance? Yet, they have the audacity to insult us all by bragging about how rich they are. Yet, we all know they are bragging about the money they dead brother store from us. Thieving bastards…