…says politicians should receive maximum salary of K500,000 per month
…Advises ‘future predecessor’ Chakwera
Son to late politician Aleke Banda, Thoko Banda, announced his presidential bid yesterday, saying challenges which Malawians are facing can be resolved within a year or two.
Banda held a press briefing yesterday in Lilongwe where he announced that he will be vying for the highest office in the land in the 2025 presidential elections.
According to Banda, challenges Malawi is facing include lack of industries, lack of funds for university students, schools without resources, hospitals without medications, cities without jobs, agricultural projects without markets and paved roads with death trap potholes.
He claimed that with visionary and innovative leadership, it is possible to uplift the lives of Malawians and to set the country on a firmer development trajectory.
“The bright side is that with the right leadership and policies, these situations
can be turned around within a year or two of a change of government,” he said.
He added: “It is with this in mind that I will be vying again for the highest office of the land.”
Banda in his speec asked Malawians to join him in creating a new and viable alternative leadership for Malawi, one that is based on five foundation stones for the Republic of Malawi.
Banda said he believes that the tax regime must be a redistributive regime that prioritises fully functional social services (such as hospitals, schools and universities, extension services) over foreign or elite beneficiaries.
He added that all foreign direct investment must have meaningful, clearly defined local beneficiation components.
“Government should actively project and protect the socioeconomic viability of
Malawians in the diaspora, and the Malawi economy should be positioned for maximal integration with the broader African economy,” he said.
He further argued that the wealth of the nation must duly benefit Malawians and that all Malawian land must have majority Malawian ownership.
Banda also argued that elected persons and senior public servants should be prohibited, by law, from conducting businesses while serving as elected persons or as senior public servants and that by law, maximum salaries of elected officials should not be more than ten times the official minimum wage.
“If we are telling Malawians they can survive on K50,000 a month, then surely politicians should not complain on surviving on K500,000 a month,” he said.
He then asked for support in leading a change in shifting politics from being about persons and their political parties to being about policies for national and community development for the benefit of Malawians.
“This will require us to leave gutter politics to gutter-politicians. We will need to leave tribal politics to tribalists. We will need to be disciplined, focused, and intentional as we teach these existing parties lessons in leadership competence and policy credibility,” he said
He also asked for support in helping him mobilize a new generation of
intelligent, competent, uncorrupted and uncorruptible young Malawians so that they
can join him in standing as candidates in our country’s Tripartite elections in
September 2025.
“We need to elect brand new parliamentarians who will make the urgent changes to our laws so that they are quick to bring Justice to protect our citizens from abuse, to
protect our citizens from being abused by politicians, by government officials, by law
enforcers, from being abused by judicial processes, by landlords, by employers, by
investors,” said Banda.
Banda then prayed that God will bless his “future predecessor” Lazarus Chakwera with the wisdom necessary for alleviating the extreme suffering that Malawians are facing.
He also prayed that Chakwera and his cohort of alliance partners will respect all the laws of this land in these remaining two years of their mandate.
Said Banda: “If they do this, I will have no problems with them when they vacate in 2025.”
Banda who was born in 1964 is a former Malawian diplomat turned politician. In 2013, he also announced a presidential bid ahead of the 2014 presidential elections but later endorsed Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
