A week after 46 Karonga North-West constituency UTM members joined the United Democratic front (UDF), the constituency saw more defections Saturday afternoon as about 630 Democratic People’s Congress (DEPECO) members announced their journey to People’s Party (PP).
The new PP members were welcomed at a rally the party’s secretary general held at Freedom Park in the district.
Making the announcement, the party’s district governor Abraham Mwanjasi said the DEPECO shadow Member of Parliament Underson Mwaipinga and all members decided to head to PP because of its ideologies and policies that according to him put the welfare of the poor people first.
“We have decided to join PP after noting that the party has similar vision and development plans for Malawi. Therefore, I can say here comfortably that there is no longer DEPECO in Karonga North-West as the whole leadership has moved to Joyce Banda’s party in order to help her ascend to the Presidency and continue her pro poor agenda of lifting the poor’s livelihood,” Mwanjasi said.
Speaking at the same function, PP’s Secretary General Ibrahim Matola went to town and took a swipe at the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for treating brutal killings and attacks of people with albinism with kids’ gloves, saying there is no political will from President Peter Mutharika administration to end the malpractice that has become rampant.
Matola said it is not surprising that the government is failing to track down those who are behind these barbaric acts as it has also failed to bring to book those who are behind the killing of the third year Polytechnic engineering student Robert Chasowa and that of the former Anti-Corruption Bureau director of administration Issah Njauju few years ago.
“We came here with just one take home message. Vote for Joyce Banda who is the only tested leader and PP if you really want things to change in this country. It is only PP that has an agenda for pro poor Malawians in the country as witnessed by a two year stint that Banda ruled the country after the demise of Professor Bingu wa Mutharika, she made sure that fuel was available, intermittent power supply woes came to an end and prices of basic goods were brought down and also she introduced a lot of programs that benefited the underprivileged and the marginalized.
“When she comes back to power after the May 21 elections, she will do more than that. She will end all these brutal killings of people living with albinism and end nepotism and monopolization of business opportunities by one tribe,” Matola said.
Matola also told the sizeable gathering that it is also Joyce Banda who courageously brought in forensic auditors for issues of money theft christened cashgate to be in the limelight and that some people were arrested and others are still answering charges related to misappropriation of public funds.
He said the DPP led government is failing do the same on the Chaponda maizegate and money laundering cases.
Taking his turn, the shadow Member of Parliament for the area Underson Mwaipinga who also defected from DEPECO said time has come for Karonga North-West which has been lagging behind in terms of development for a long time to develop.
“This area lies right inside Karonga Township yet it is not developing its status despite several calls to be elevated to town assembly. As long as it is the way it is, that status cannot be conferred upon it.
“The only solution is an engineer like me. I will see to it that we rehabilitate and upgrade as many roads as possible, we clean up the mess at our market and make sure that the environment is conducive for vendors to maximize revenue that in turn will make it easy for authorities to grant us that status,” Mwaipinga said.
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