Chakwera faults Malawi gov’t policies on mining
Leader of the opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) Dr Lazarus Chakwera has faulted government policy of allowing mining investors into the country anyhow, saying it does not benefit people as there are no mechanisms to monitor the miners.
Speaking during his a political rally he addressed in the northern district of Karonga on Sunday, Chakwera said people in the district are suffering due to various natural disasters which are caused by effects of projects that do not benefit them.
He described the development as unfortunate and promised to construct meteorological office in the district which would warn the residents in advance of any impending natural disaster.
“As we all know that Karonga is a disaster prone area and there is need to have a department which should be monitoring how the seasons will be like so that people should be prepared on what will come next.
“Some of these disasters are happening because somewhere something was not monitored well and now is it affecting innocent people who are not even seeing fruits of the causative agents,” said Chakwera.
Chakwera said it is very shameful and unfortunate that natural resources that God blessed the country with are just benefiting few people.
“God gave us these natural resources so that Malawians should benefit from that not two or three people only. We need to be transparent on how things that involve human life works and how they are accepted in our country,” he said
On food security, Chakwera said Karonga has the capacity of feeding Malawi as it has the potential to grow any kind of crop in addition to rice schemes which are in the district.
“It is very unfortunate that all the schemes that our forefathers put in place are not functioning the way they are supposed to and if we can just improve these schemes here we cannot be complaining of hunger in our country. We need to put in place mechanisms that will make the rice schemes return to their old glory and if we can do that, I assure you that we cannot be complaining of hunger here,” said Chakwera.
The MCP leader also bemoaned the unemployment facing the youth in the country. He said it is unfortunate that the youths who are supposed to go to Malawi University and other different colleges are staying at home doing nothing because the country has nothing to offer them.
“Just imagine out of 110,000 students who passed Form Four only 2,500 were selected to go to different colleges, think of the same number last year, the other year, that shows that our youths are staying idle doing nothing a thing that can create crimes in the country, forgetting that the youth are the ones who can promote our country as development starts with these youths, ” said Chakwera.
Chakwera said there is no sense to move “our youth to other countries for employment”
He said there is a need for Karonga district to be a developed city saying it is the northern doorstep which leads to people to see and determine how beautiful the country is.
“We need to make Karonga a city as it is a border district and people first see it before they go inside our country. For that reason if the northern is beautiful visitors will be interested to go even inside the country as a way of attracting people, in so doing boosting our development,” said Chakwera.
He then urged people to register in large numbers and vote MCP in next year’s general elections.
