President Lazarus Chakwera has cancelled his planned trip to the United States where he was expected to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), State House has announced.
Chakwera was expected to leave Malawi for the United States on 18 September and would have been in New York for about two weeks.
The President’s Executive Assistant and State House Director of Communications Sean Kampondeni says Chakwera will not attend the summit in person but will participate virtually.
“His reason is that there are a number of emerging issues that are on his desk that require his attention and that cannot wait. Over the course of the next month the president will be fully immersed in resolving these issues on behalf of the Malawians people so that he can move with some level of speed on addressing these concerns.
“The president felt that for him to be out of the country over the course of the month of September would cause some delays in some of these decisions that he needs to put into effect.
“So, he is very keen to be fully present as he makes certain decisions and execute certain actions that have become rather pressing,” said Kampondeni at State House this morning.
He mentioned projects that needs to be monitored and systemic problems that needs to be fixed as some of the issues.
At the UNGA, Chakwera will address the summit and will also attend side meetings. Kampondeni said the president will now participate in all these events virtually.
The 76th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 76) will open on Tuesday, 14 September 2021. The first day of the high-level General Debate will be Tuesday, 21 September 2021 and the summit will end on 30 September.
