Broken promises. Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera is eating his vomit with a straight face as he, through his press secretary, has refused to reveal the amount he is spending in his never-ending foreign and domestic trips.
Chakwera had promised to be a servant leader with a commitment to transparency and accountability.
The president has made six foreign trips since being elected in June and today his press secretary Brian Banda was asked to reveal the amount of money Chakwera has spent on his trips.
In response, Banda did not reveal the amount used during the foreign travel but claimed that the Chakwera administration is spending within limits.
“We are making sure that we use funds according to the allocation approved by Parliament. We are doing better than previous administration which sometimes blew the budget,” said Banda.
On his trip to South Africa, Chakwera took a whole village of 63 members and on the trip to Botswana last week the Malawi leader went with 14 people from State House.
The promise to improve transparency over spending of public funds is one of the campaign promises the president has decided to openly break.
During the campaign period, Chakwera promised to create 1 million jobs and introduce universal fertilizer subsidy but his administration is yet to start creating jobs and the subsidy programme which the Chakwera administration introduced only target about 3.5 million farmers.
