Malawi President Reverend Lazarus Chakwera face accusations that his claims that Tonse Alliance Government has created 997,423 jobs are lies.
Chakwera, a pastor cum politician, made the shocking revelations in his speech today when he opened the State Opening of the 5th Meeting in the 49th Session of Parliament and the 2022/2023 Budget Meeting.
The Malawi leader promised to create one million jobs in the first year of his presidency and today he blamed Covid-19 for the failure to reach the target. He then claimed that after 18 months of his administration, the number of jobs created is close to the one million target.
“Although we have not reached our target of 1 million jobs in the timeframe we set due to three successive waves of Covid-19 that we did not foresee when we set that target, we have come impressively close.
“Government now estimates that in the 2021/22 Fiscal Year, the number of jobs created in both private and public sectors stood at 997,423,” Chakwera said.
His claims today come only six months after he told the BBC in an interview in July last year that his government had created 300,000 jobs in its first year.
Malawians on social media have since demanded the president to state the source of his figures. Many have described the figures Chakwera presented as lies.
“Mr President sir…can you please clarify to Malawians on the source where you have collected that information…. or which report contains that statistics …. thank you sir,” said Kumbukani Nyirenda in a comment on Malawi24 Facebook Page.
“I guess that figure is from family members and friends. We haven’t seen any job being created out of the 1 million so the actual number is 0,” said Warren Chikumbanje.
“If it wasn’t for my tax, I could have been quiet. Our president has started telling us lies which I feel will not help him,” said one commenter.
While another said: “Where are these people working? Malawians can be fooled but not to this extent.
Kafunseni chilima not chakwera those figures are from chilima note book