Leader of Opposition, Kondwani Nankhumwa, says President Lazarus Chakwera insulted poor Malawians with his State of National Address which the LoP says was blank and without substance.
Presenting his response to Chakwera’s SONA, Nankhumwa said Malawians expected a comprehensive articulation of a roadmap of how the government would implement its vision and a development blueprint but these were not included in the SONA.
“Instead, what Malawians got was merely a blank page where substance was relegated to the backseat,” said Nankhumwa.
He criticized the president for pledging to construct official houses for Members of Parliament (MPs) whom he said are wealthier than many civil servants yet civil servants including teachers, nurses, police and army officers, social welfare officers and agriculture extension workers, among others live in dilapidated houses.
Nankhumwa, who is also vice president of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) called the plan an insult to poor Malawians.
On health, the Leader of Opposition commended the government for setting ambitious targets in Maternal and Child Health such as 350 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2022 and the SDG target of 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030; to eliminate HIV/AIDS as a public health hazard by 2030 as well as ensuring 100 percent availability of affordable family planning services and commodities.
He, however, noted the statement fell short of outlining an action plan or the building blocks of how these targets will be achieved.
He also observed that the president mentioned little about the fight against Covid-19 yet the disease has substantially disrupted the health care space and exposed our inadequacies.
“The SONA fell short in terms of outlining comprehensive measures, including funding profiles to equipping major referral hospitals with equipment and drugs to prevent such infectious diseases from devastating our health care system again in future,” said Nankhumwa.
On education, he said the president missed an opportunity to authoritatively outline how the education system would be revamped and improved in line with the Tonse Alliance manifesto.
“The President promised to increase university enrolment by 12,000 from 36,000 in 2019/2020 to 48,000 in 2020/2021, without explaining how the intake will be doubled from the current 6,000 cognizant of the fact that annual intake has averaged 4900 since 2014/2015,” he said.
The Leader of Opposition added that tertiary education students are still waiting for the scraping of tuition and boarding fees as well as start receiving book and upkeep allowances, as promised by the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) during the campaign period.
According to Nankhumwa, Chakwera could also have come out clearly with actionable plans on expatriates; land reforms; ICT and the creation of 1 million jobs within the first 12 months of Tonse Alliance government.
“It is troubling, therefore, to hear statements like ‘we are consulting’ and ‘we are collecting data’ from a man who is supposed to steer the creation of 1 million jobs when we are actually in the third month of the 12 months.
“The data that Malawians needed is how many jobs this government has created over the past three months that it has been in office,” said Nankhumwa.
He further expressed concern over lack of policies and measures which will be implemented to improve agriculture which is key to Malawi’s economy.
On the economy, Nankhumwa said Chakwera did not present measures his administration would put in place to keep the economy ticking.
He noted that companies are failing to register profits due to the Coronavirus pandemic and 400,000 have been dismissed because of the pandemic in Malawi.
Nankhumwa urged Chakwera’s administration to seriously consider reducing cooperate tax the private sector pays to Government.
