The Catholic Church has urged people in the country to choose a leader who can save the country from collapsing and turn it into a unified and prosperous nation.
This has been said in a Pastoral Letter released today by the Catholic Bishops of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM).
The letter has been signed by Most Reverend Thomas Msusa who is the ECM President and Archbishop of Blantyre. Seven other bishops from across the country have also signed the letter.
In the letter titled “A Further Call for a New Era” the bishops say a leader should have qualities such as honesty, democratic, transformational leadership, visionary, selflessness, servant leadership.
“Failure to have such a leader will result in our nation becoming more chaotic, divided and with deepening levels of poverty,” reads part of the letter.
According to the bishops, Malawi is at crossroads and people can either choose to save the nation or destroy it.
On health, ECM notes that the COVID- 19 has exposed how under resourced the health services are in the terms of infrastructure, equipment and personal.
“This has happened because for a long time we have not put enough resources into system and some of the little that has been put in into has been misused,” says the bishops.
They add that there has also been over reliance on medical facilities outside the country instead developing Malawi’s own systems
On education, the bishops say the sector has suffered the same challenges in terms of limited funding, substandard infrastructure, inadequate and learning materials.
The letter also notes that the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) is mostly regarded as professional and enjoy a lot of public trust and confidence while the Malawi Police Service is generally considered as partisan and dysfunctional and has lost a lot of public trust.
“In addition, the Malawi Police Service is underfunded leading to inefficient service delivery and poor welfare of police officers,” the bishops said.
The bishops in their letter have also expressed concern over tribalism, political violence, continued environmental degradation, corruption and rising levels of impunity.
