Kabwila says brutual fact Malawians are suffering: Kamlepo laments ‘State Capture’

Salima North West member of Parliament (MP) Jessie Kabwila for opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) has said government should not live in denial as Malawians are suffering with every passing day of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in power.

“Just go outside this House and you will see how people are suffering,” Kabwila said in Parliament on Monday.

He said Malawians are languishing in hopelessness as things fall apart with clueless leadership.

Outspoken Rumphi East member of Parliament (MP) Kamlepo Kalua  (People’s Party-PP), in an interview with Nyasa Times said Kabwila remarks were “spot on.”

“I said on Times TV that the story of the Mutharika presidency is written in rising unemployment, deepening poverty, and the evil of corruption and state capture,” said Kalua.

He said Malawians will hit the reset button in 2019 polls by replacing the  failed government .

“Every single day under this government means misery and ruin for more Malawians,” said Kalua.

In his address in Parliament, leader of opposition Lazarus Chakwera said President Peter Mutharika  and his Cabinet refuse to admit or address is that Malawians across the country are finding life miserable under his government.

“While the President spent much of his address painting a rosy picture of Malawi based on an academic selection of certain economic indicators, Malawians know that if life in Malawi is a rose, it is a rose whose petals are in the hands of the corrupt and powerful, while the rest scramble for the thorns they leave behind,” said Chakwera.

He cited the President’s “ ill-timed” lifting of the ban on exporting maize, saying it was done so late that it will guarantee the enrichment of politically connected politicians and the impoverishment of the farmers.

Chakwera also pointed out that President “struts about reductions in the digits of the economy’s inflation and interest rates, Malawians are wrestling monthly with serious reductions in the digits and value of their income and revenue. “

Despite the debatable claims that the stability of the currency proves that all is well, one undebatable sign that Malawians are earning less and less is the fact that the Malawi Revenue Authority which collects taxes on what Malawians are earning in real terms missed its targets two months in a row, July and August 2017.

“And when you look at the situation with our young people, the picture is quite grim and explains why our earning power as a nation is deteriorating. Young people cannot earn an income if they are not employed, but not only are millions of them unable to find jobs, but so many who had jobs are being laid off by companies that are downsizing to survive President Mutharika’s business-killing economy, such as construction companies that have stopped hiring in the wake of a severe cement shortage on the market,” he said.

Chakwera said “one silver lining”  in the midst of the misery of living in Mutharika’s economy is that he has taken a page out of late President Kamuzu Banda’s playbook of reserving enough grain stocks to stave off hunger.

“But 23 years after the dawn of democracy and 20 years after Kamuzu Banda, it is a shame that we are still led by people who cannot move our people’s prosperity beyond the ability to be fed by the Government,” he said.

Chakwera stressed that Malawians are “ living in misery”, and that it is “ baffling” that the President failed to admit or address it.