The widow of the late Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima, Mary, will tomorrow launch the Saulos Klaus Chilima (SKC) foundation at the Bingu International Convention Center (BICC) in the capital, Lilongwe.
The Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) has confirmed that President Lazarus Chakwera will attend the occasion at the invitation of the Chilima family.
But what does this mean?
The late Chilima served his second term as the country’s second in command after partnering with the governing Tonse Alliance, led by incumbent president Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). However, it is widely speculated that the relationship between Chakwera and Chilima deteriorated until his demise in a fateful accident in the Chikangawa forest plane crash.
President Chakwera instituted a Commission of Inquiry into the plane crash, but many believe the findings of the inquiry are not concrete and leave a lot to be desired.
As the Chilima family is launching the SKC foundation, the OPC says the presence of Chakwera at the event is a sign of respect to the fallen hero, who was widely regarded by many as a great technocrat to help the Tonse-led alliance to turn around the country’s deteriorating economy.
But a million-dollar question is: Does this mean the Chilima family is ok with the inquiry?
Not really! The family was not committal on the inquiry report which was released by the commission established by Lazarus Chakwera Chakwera. A mammoth crowd in the country were not satisfied with the report, arguing that it failed to address the nitty-gritty as far as the Malawi Defence Force plane accident was concerned.
Mary had even to cry out loud, begging the government and Chakwera to institute an investigation, but it seems Chakwera was not even interested in instituting the inquiry even before the request by Madame Chilima.
Who invited the President? Is it the organizing committee or the family? Did Mary invite the president alone?
Malawi24 has also discovered that all is not well in the Chilima family, as some people in the family are against the decision to invite President Lazarus Chakwera to the launch of the SKC foundation.
We have also been informed by our sources that Mary did not invite the president, but the organizing team did invite the president, and this has led to confusion in the family.
To get the facts on this, we contacted Joshua Valera, who speaks for the Chilima family. However, Valera refused to comment on the invitation of Chakwera to the event.
” Mr Valera, can you confirm that the family indeed invited the President to the launch and that the whole family agreed to that decision? Valera ” No! I will not comment on this issue thank you.”
The response by Valera raises a red flag question as well; it seems all is not well in the family, and some people in the family are against that idea. We have also established that Chakwera is squeezing himself into attending the event only to gain political mileage.
Will the invitation of Chakwera to the launch change what people are thinking out there?
The invitation of Lazarus Chakwera to the launch of the SKC foundation will not change anything; the only thing that was supposed to change what people think was the inquiry report, but the report failed to answer the questions and quickly pre-empted the discourse by trying to blame the deceased who cannot refute anything.
The majority of people say the Commission’s report offers a narrative with a lack of depth, transparency, and a failure to hold the relevant authorities accountable.
What are people saying about the invitation of President Chakwera to the SKC Foundation launch
We had a chat with different people on the issue and out of 10 people, 9 say the invitation will not change anything because they still want real answers on what happened at Chikangawa.
” Lazarus Chakwera is the president and the late Chilima was his vice president. So, I don’t see any problem with the invitation, but still, as for me, I am not satisfied with the inquiry report released recently. That inquiry left many questions, and I will never forget what happened at Chikangawa. I will have my answer on 16 September,” said James.
“The way the president acted on this issue raises many questions and we still want answers on what happened on that day. And yes, Mary has invited the President, but this does not mean all is well; he is going there as the president and late Chilima’s boss, that’s all.
But we still wait for the inquiry or report that will have real answers, and as Malawians, we will know what happened that day,” said Charity Mzungu.
Kondwani from Mitundu in Lilongwe said Mary is just following protocol by inviting the president to the launch, and some people should not align the invitation with Chilima’s death and also the inquiry report.
” You know the launch is another thing and Mary is not wrong to invite the president there. We can not say just because she has invited the President then everything is ok no. She had no option but to invite him and for some of us the invitation will not change what we are thinking and we know. We still have so many questions on what happened at Chikangawa and we know for sure we will have real answers after we change the government,” said Kondwani.
Governance and political commentator Victor Chipofya said it’s too soon for the President to be close to the family of the late Chilima because that death was very painful, and a lot of Malawians have so many questions.
“There are certain statements that the president made when the plane crashed which do not tally with the findings in the commission of inquiry report, and it raised more questions amongst Malawians. So, as muchfarwe know, it will be very difficult for the president not to be there since you are talking about the late Vice president. But I think it would have been wiser for him not to attend the launch; he has got rights; he can attend, but they should not politicize it in a sense that they should say that this means everything is ok, no,” said Chipofya.
According to Chipofya, the way MCP treated Chilima, there is no need for people to be saying that they are going to the launch of SKC.
“We already know that the relationship between SKC and the president and MCP as a party was not good towards the end. And for them to start coming now and pretend like they loved the guy, I think it’s unfair to the family because the family knows what was happening; they saw what was happening, so it will be very unfair for the MCP guys to make politics out of someone’s death,” he explained.
UTM party Publicity Secretary Felix Njawala said that as the party, they are not politicizing the launch because it is not related to politics and what MCP is doing is very unfair to the family of Chilima.
“UTM is not politicizing this issue and the best thing MCP can do is also not to politicize this issue because these are two different things. So politicizing this issue will be very unfortunate because now it may have a bearing on Mary. After all, when she was doing that she never thought that the Malawi Congress Party would be politicizing this issue,” he explained.
