The Leadership Institute for Transparency and Accountability (LITA) has described 2023 as a wasted year in terms of Malawi’s political governance and socioeconomic development due to negligence by the Lazarus Chakwera administration.
This is contained in a press statement which has been released on Wednesday, 10th January, 2024 and signed by Goodwell Logeya who is LITA Executive Director.
LITA through Logeya said it is very worrisome that being a year in which Malawians had hope and expected the state president to swiftly take serious action on solving the socio-economic problems that affected the citizens, Chakwera was either travelling locally or outside the country which raised many questions as to who was in charge over national affairs.
“It was a wasted year. It was the year when the President had watched over high industrialized corruption in the echelons of power. The administration tirelessly advanced public looting, money laundering and racketeering agenda. Billions of Malawi Kwachas that could have boosted the health, road, education and agricultural sectors, had been siphoned through dubious deals, yet to date, no culprit has been brought to book. This, therefore, entails that the Chakwera administration is a bunch of thieves with no agenda for transformative leadership,” reads part of LITA statement.
LITA statement says 2023 was also a year marked by gross human rights violations as evidenced by the detention, arbitrary arrest, threats and intimidation of human rights activists in the country which they say were orchestrated by failed politicians from the governing Malawi Congress Party (MCP).
Logeya in the statement further said they are disappointed with the skyrocketing of cases of suicide, robbery, road accident and the dubious deaths of Lusungu Mwakhwawa of Federalism Institute in Malawi, Allan Witika, a former Sales Manager of the Coca-Cola beverage, Agnes Katengeza, a former employee of the Reserve Bank of Malawi. He said this signifies security lapse under the watch of the president.
The organization further pointed a finger at Chakwera for failing to control the economy of the country which it says has led to the worsening of the economic status, induced by the devaluation of the Malawian Kwacha by 44 percent.
“What was even more worrisome was the gross negligence of the Chakwera administration to control the economy. The Kwacha went on losing its grip with no political will to bring it into total check. The prices of basic food commodities, including maize, went up, without the administration’s effort to regulate the prices for the reach of the poorest Malawians.
“The series of the Kwacha devaluation have crippled the economy with no hope of recovery. Sadly, salaries in the civil service remain disproportionate to the devaluation rate,” says LITA in the statement.
LITA has also expressed dissatisfaction with the politicization of the Affordable farm Input Program (AIP), loans at National Economic Empowerment Fund (NEEF), nepotism, tribalism, cronyism, and executive arrogance which it says are even terribly worse in the Chakwera led administration.
Despite all these, LITA has thanked the Tonse administration for continuing some of the projects that were left by the previous administration and also for improving fuel and electricity situations in the country.
