Chakwera fails “simple” HARDtalk question

 …3.7m actually 3.5m people are accessing AIP

…600K who lost their jobs compared to 300K that were employed…

Malawians are mocking President Lazarus Chakwera for a poor BBC HARDtalk interview. The President failed to answer the most basic question of how many jobs his administration has created for the year he has been President.

Chakwera during the campaign for the 2020 presidential elections promised to create one million jobs in the first year of his presidency.

During the interview, Journalist Sarah Montague noted that the Covid-19 pandemic was already there when Chakwera was elected. She then asked the president how many jobs have been created over the past year.

Chakwera in response said: “When we started for example with the Affordable Inputs Programme, we had thousands of jobs. Young people were employed across the country with millions of people accessing inputs. It was 3.7 actually 3.5 million people able to access inputs that put a workable..”

The Journalist then cut Chakwera saying she asked a simple question but Chakwera insisted that he should be allowed to continue.

He went on: “Because of other people being laid off since industry was scaling down due to the pandemic, because we were able to create jobs for people who would need wages..”

Montague interrupted Chakwera against and asked if his argument was that if government had saved jobs, then Malawi would would have lost more jobs.

Chakwera said: “We could have lost more jobs. The 600,000 that lost their jobs compared to the 30,000 that were able to be employed. That was gonna be possible in an ideal situation.”

Malawians on social media have since mocked the president for failing to answer the questions. Some Malawians say the Malawi leader should have refused to grant the HARDtalk interview.

“Kodi sizikanatheka Apule kukana kuti toto interview sindipanga? (wasn’t it possible for the president to reject the interview request?). Ojiya get ready to defend this nonsense. The President’s responses are contrary to the questions asked eishiiii,”said Abiti on Facebook.

“eish…. painful to watch,” said a commenter on Manice’s post.

While another social media user said: [He]doesn’t know & doesn’t even have the capacity to address challenges in his own country. The country is on fire