MCP insists Malawi running on autopilot, govt rejects claims

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) lawmakers have accused President Peter Mutharika government of being “clueless” on coming out of economic turmoil,  saying the country is on auto pilot.

The country is currently facing many industrial action over demands for salary increase due to weakening Kwacha and rising costs of living.

MCP chief whip in Parliament, Lobin Lowe accused Mutharika of being clueless leader.

“Things are moving as if we are on auto pilot,” said Lowe.

MCP MP for Dowa East, Richard Chimwendo also accused Mutharika on having no clue to run a country.

They made the scatching attack in Mangochi where the party youth donated assorted items to Mangohci District Hospital on Saturday.

The remarks cemented the position taken by MCP president and leader of opposition Rev Dr Lazarous Chakwera who recently branded Mutharika a “hypocrite” when there was a salary hike for him.

President Mutharika and Vice-President Saulos Chilima deferred proposed 80 percent salary increases that could have seen them earning K2.7 million and K1.8 million per month, respectively.

However, Finance, Economic Planning and Development Minister Goodall Gondwe said Government is firmly pushing for budgetary discipline that makes public workers’ clamour for strikes and unbudgeted salary increases detrimental to efforts to heal the nation’s economic woes.

According to Gondwe, Cashgate scandal, exposed last year which resulted in K20 billion of public resources being plundered, has left government cash-strapped, especially after donors also withheld 11 percent, and not the purported 40 percent, of their budgetary support to Malawi.

Gondwe explained that while the government is actively tackling and revamping the public finance management systems, to prevent a recurrence of the Cashgate-like looting, it is also bent on harmonising salaries as a way of instilling discipline, fairness and motivation among civil servants and their colleagues in parastatals and other public service organisations.

“It is public order and harmonisation that we are trying to achieve. The old salaries were very much disjointed,” Gondwe stated.