JB urges chiefs to help her agenda to develop Malawi
President Joyce Banda on Thursday met Chiefs from Malawi at Sanjika Palace in Blantyre where among others discussed ways on how to develop the country.
Speaking at the opening of the meeting, President Banda reiterated the need for chiefs in the country to be development conscious and help in uplifting lives of the people.
Said President Banda: “The meeting today is about development. We have to find ways of uplifting lives of Malawians, we have to find ways of ensuring that our villages are developed and our people are living a better life.”
Banda said they are a lot of programs that were introduced that need the chiefs support citing the Presidential Initiative on Safe Motherhood and Maternal Health, Presidential Initiative on Poverty and Hunger Reduction, one cow per family and the Mudzi Transformation Trust among others.
On Safe Motherhood, the Malawi leader said chiefs have an important role as they can advise their subjects to deliver at hospitals.
On Fertilizer Subsidy, Banda said the past year, chiefs have done a better job in distributing fertilizer coupons as research show that a lot of people received the coupons. She said it is worrying though that the Fisp budget is as much as the National budget but every year there is hunger in the country.
Banda said together with the chiefs they have to find ways of ensuring that there is no hunger in the country by encouraging people to grow crops twice a year.
Speaking after the meeting, Paramount Chief Kyungu of Karonga hailed Banda for holding the first ever meeting with them as they are the ones that live with the people in the villages.
“Today we were respected and we were called her to discuss issues of national interest. The president told us her vision on eradicating poverty through wealth and job creation and we all gave ideas on how we can realize her vision,” he said.
Paramount Kyungu noted that meeting with the President has cleared some issues that they did not understand and this will help them in implementing most of the projects established by government.
About 230 chiefs attended, which earlier opposition parties expressed suspicions on the whole meeting.
