Chilima says Mutharika’s wedding to cost K38m: ‘Well-wishers’ to fund not taxpayer
Thousands of people are due to attend the wedding of Malawi’s new President, Professor Peter Mutharika, who will marry former lawmaker Gertrude Hendrina Maseko Saturday June 21 but there will be no coast from tax payers as government says it will be a private ceremony.
State Vice President Saulos Chilima told a news conference in Blantyre that the wedding ceremony will not use any money from government.
“We will not use government resources,” he stressed.
Chilima is chairing the wedding committee which includes some other top government officials including State House chief of staff Peter Mukhito.
The Vice President told reporters that the wedding will cost K38 million (about US $95,000) and that “well-wishers will fund the wedding.”
Chilima said the wedding committee plans to fete some 6,000 villagers from around
Mutharika’s ancestral village of Goliati in Thyolo, some 300 VVIP and 1,000 VIP guests.
Earlier, State House Press Officer Chikondi Juma, said in a statement that Mutharika, 74, will marry “his long time best friend and confidante” Maseko.
Juma said a private ceremony to bless the wedding will take place at St Michael and All Angels Church of Central Africa Presbyterian in Blantyre before a family reception at former president Bingu wa Mutharika’s farm house in the southern tea-growing district of Thyolo.
Peter Mutharika’s brother, late Bingu wa Mutharika also married while in State House – his former minister Callista Chimombo in 2010 three years after losing his wife of 30 years Ethel.
Peter has also been a widower for 30 years after losing his first wife, Christophine, from the Caribbean. They have three children between them.
Maseko has just lost her Balaka North parliamentary seat to musician Lucius Banda. She served as an MP during the older Mutharika’s administration.
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