Kwacha! Phoya joins Malawi Congress Party
Former justice minister Henry Dama Phoya (HDP) has joined the main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP).
He announced his decision Tuesday afternoon at a news conference held at MCP President John Tembo’s Area 10 residence in Lilongwe where top brass MCP officials attended.
He told the journalists: “I, Henry Duncan Phoya, have now become a member of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). “
The MP said the membership is with effect from 1st January, 2012.
Phoya, who is also and MP for Blantyre Rural East, said he did not intend to dwell on the reasons or the background to my expulsion from the DPP, saying the reasons are well-documented.
“From the time that communication was made to me regarding my expulsion, I decided that I was never going to make it a habit or, indeed, an obsession to speak about why I was expelled from the DPP or, indeed, to castigate or, in any way, speak about the internal affairs of the DPP,” he said.
“I believe that I have lived up to this decision because since July, 2011, I have never gone public to speak against the DPP as a party. The people in the DPP are running their Party in the way they deem proper and, as someone outside it, I have no right to judge them. I believe that as a politician, the correct thing to do is to leave the task of judging them to the public that we all serve as politicians,” he said in a very calm and humility sense.
“They made their decision to expel me, and I made my decision to move on,” he added.
Why MCP?
He said revealed that from around August, 2011, he has been involved in “very intense” and must “mature discussions” with the leadership of the MCP.
“Those discussions took place in an atmosphere of mutual respect and sincerity. I wish to use this opportunity to express my heartfelt appreciation to the leadership of the MCP for this,” he said as Tembo flanked him.
Phoya said while those discussions were going on, a number of developments occurred in this country concerning issues of governance and the general state of the economy.
“A combination of my discussions with the MCP and the developments which were happening , and continue to happen, in this country, compelled me to come to the conclusion that Malawi as a country is in dire need of mature, serious and focussed leadership if it is to be saved from the path of destruction which it has taken,” said Phoya.
“That conclusion also compelled me to reach a decision to the effect that the formation of another political Party would not, in any way, add value to the political well-being of this country.”
Malawi is bleeding
He said for some time now, Malawi’s political arena has been “full of political experiments.”
HDP said: “These political experiments, usually in the form of new political parties, and untried and untested and inexperienced politicians, have been extremely costly to the well-being of Mother Malawi.”
Phoya added: “ I did not want to be part of such experiments by forming a new political party, for Malawi is bleeding, Malawi is haemorrhaging and Malawi cannot afford the luxury of any further political experiments, for, if we were to continue with these experiments, we shall clock even a hundred years of independence and our economy will continue to remain a sick joke while all our neighbours in the region continue to register remarkable economic progress and make visible strides towards becoming middle- income countries.”
Homecoming
Phoya said he want to be part of the crusade to fix the countries and says Malawi can only be saved from continued destruction if it is led by leaders who are “truly patriotic to it and who are a hundred percent passionate about it. “
In dropping his bombshell, Phoya said: “I came to the conclusion that I belong to the Malawi Congress Party. That it is in the MCP that I have fellow Malawians with whom I share the same kind of passion and the same kind of concern for the well-being of this country.”
He thanked the MCP leadership which flanked him led by Tembo, Joseph Njobvuyalema, Makala Ngozo, and Nancy Tembo “for accepting me to become one of its sons.”
“My coming into the MCP is not a completely strange phenomenon. My father, the late Duncan Phoya, was a senior member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the MCP right up to the time of his passing in 1980. He worked closely with both the Father and Founder of the Malawi nation, the late Ngwazi, and also with the current President of the MCP, the Right Honourable J.Z.U. Tembo, MP. I am, therefore, in a way, simply returning back home.”
He pledged to be a loyal, obedient and disciplined member of the MCP and to always work as “a member of a united and stable MCP. “
Said Phoya: “I will respect the leadership hierarchy of the MCP and will abide by the decisions and resolutions of all the established organs of the Party.”
He said his singular goal; together with the leadership of the MCP will be the restoration of the lost glory of Mother Malawi.
