Malawi citizens critique President Mutharika over 1 million job remark

Malawians have taken up to social media to critique President Peter Mutharika for suggesting that it was impossible to create one million jobs in Malawi in a year.

State Vice-President Saulos Chilima , who is leading the newly established  United Transformation Movement (UTM), has said he would create one million jobs once voted into power.

In a pre-recorded program to be aired on State-controlled Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), Mutharika said:

“Nobody can create one million jobs in this country. Never. It can never happen.”

But some Malawians rebuked the President that it was indeed easier to get involved in K145 million alleged kickback than create jobs of such magnitude.

They were referring to the contentious K145 million donation suspected to have been proceeds of crime in much-publicised Malawi Police Service (MPS) food rations scam deposited in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) account.

Mutharika is the sole signatory to the DPP account which received the ‘suspicious’ funding.

Those commenting on Facebook argued that Mutharika could not even think of creating jobs, saying his government was failing to employ government trained teachers for two years now.

Zameer Karim’s Pioneer Investments is under Anti-Corruption Bureau probe for a K2.7 billion food rationing scandal.

Following a leaked Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) document which implicated the DPP and President Mutharika in a police food ration scandal, the DPP-led government has come under heavy public criticism with human rights defenders calling for the resignation of President Mutharika.

Reacting to the development, rights activist Gift Trapence, who is also deputy chairperson for Human Rights Defenders Coalition which has been pushing for justice on the matter, said the DPP’s announcement to pay back the money amounts to admission of guilty.