Consumers Association of Malawi (CAMA) says Malawians are tired of being asked to be patient when President Lazarus Chakwera and the people around him are refusing to be patient, are unwilling to share the suffering that the rest of Malawians are going through and are continuing to waste public resources.
CAMA’s Executive Director John Kapito said in a press release that Malawians are expecting Chakwera to provide economic strategies and plans in order to end the current economic crisis.
He added that Chakwera must be ashamed to see many industries closing down, many Malawians losing jobs under his watch and yet he has no clue how to address these serious economic blunders.
“The President hopes that the economic and social challenges faced by Malawians will be resolved by themselves without providing leadership and solutions on the current poor state of the economy.
“Mr. President you look like a defeated man. You have thrown in the towel very quickly. Malawians are convinced you have nothing left that can change the current situation and Consumers have lost confidence in you and it’s doubtful if you can improve their welfare as observed by your actions. Everyone is convinced you are just waiting for an opportunity to go.
“Our advice to you Mr. President is to Jack up or go. Mr. President the challenges that Malawians are facing now cannot just be wished away, this is not the time for the President to sit back and hope that all the problems facing this country will be sorted out by borrowing from multilateral and bilateral donors. As a country we need to find quick domestic solutions that will reduce the challenges affecting Malawians,” he said.
He went on to say that Chakwera went to the United States for UNGA for close to 25 days and he left behind forex, fuel and cost of living crises.
He added that the President left the country at a time Malawians needed his leadership to address the serious economic and social challenges the economy is going through.
“The President with his large delegation took and swept almost every dollar available on the market for activities that he could have conducted with a small number of people for a shorter period considering the cost implications of the trip.
“He is now back and has found an economy much worse than before he left for UNGA. The same lack of forex, no fuel and more queues at filling stations and now many industries are closing and shutting down production due to lack of forex, electricity and Fuel,” he said.
Kapito added that people were expecting the President, immediately upon arrival after staying out that long, to start addressing critical challenges affecting the country.
According to Kapito, people were, however, shocked last week to see both the President and his Vice at a golf charity fundraising event that could have been delegated and reduce the high security cost for attending such an expensive event.
“Instead of him engaging his key economic advisers and technocrats and finding solutions to challenges faced by Malawians he has prioritized attending to functions that have no impact to address the macro/micro economic challenges affecting the lives of many Malawians.
“While we don’t underrate the importance of the fundraising activities and other events, we believe that these are activities that the President can delegate considering the current status of the economy and focus on the key challenges affecting the country like lack of Forex, Fuel, Electricity and Food that Malawians can’t get from the market,” said Kapito.
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