Malawi media giant Times to change format on Cabinet assessment after an uproar
Malawi media giant Times Group is moving swiftly to change its format on cabinet assessment following an uproar over its newspaper assessment which was published in Sunday Times.
Writing in a WhatsApp group, Times Group managing director Leonard Chikadya said next time the media house would engage experts and civil society groups to help in making the Cabinet assessment.
“As this exercise attract public interest including those being assessed, I have given guidance to the Editor-in-Chief [George Kasakula] to establish a multidisciplinary Think Tank including civil society such as The Law Society, ICAM etc to assist,” says Chikadya.
Malawians took up in various social media platforms to express dissatisfaction over the cabinet assessment which awarded president Lazarus Chakwera 70 percent, vice president Saulos Chilima 60 percent, Sidik Mia and his wife, Abida 60 percent each.
But Chikadya said cabinet has collective responsibility and the individual scores may not matter much.
He said one has to look at the collective score which is 50 percent which was qualified as being over generous.
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I respect Mvula very much. He is intelligent, but be as it is poverty is a crime. Times is using him in the name of political analyst to attack DPP and deliberately the ills of MCP. Probably he has been promised a job in one of the statutory corporations or in the government. Previously, this is how some people like Mizwanya, Sawerengera, Nawena, Allan Ntata got jobs on a silver platter. We are watching because these liars told us during their campaign that jobs will be advertised and people compete.
Zopanda ntchito izi. The assessments are simply subjective.
Awa anazolowera reginalism basi, taonani, how many people are from kasungu at times group? can they say bad things against boma? KASAKULA BEFORE NOW, SAID THAT HE HATED MUTHARIKA, HE CAN PLAY BACK HOT CURRENT PROGRAMS AND WHAT IS HE SAYING NOW? SANGAKAMBE ZABWINO ZA DPP. LOOK AT MR MVULA, ITS LIKE NOW PERSANAL WITH DPP, KOMATU KUNO NDI KUNJA
Besides a multidisciplinary think tank, the team doing the assessment should get the KPIs and priorities the President has set for each minister to assess against. There are thousands of tasks and policy issues these ministers will have to undertake, and they cannot do them all at once. Conduct research to find out what these KPIs/priorities are, then conduct an assessment by directly interviewing the President & Ministers(is possible), opposition counterparts, the public, subject matter experts, and then look at the actual numbers like all competent media houses do.
As part of the assessment, list down the priorities and KPIs then go forth to assess where each stand at that point in time. George Kasakula’s head is getting too big for himself.
And who’s idea is it to have Kasakula on any program on Times TV?! THE MAN CAN BARELY GET A WORD OUT WITHOUT STUTTERING! Have you ever seen any TV personality with such serious speech impediments feature prominently on TV? Is it he is forcing himself to be on TV for his own person grandeur when it is clearly evidence he cannot competently speak or communicate? Editor-in-chief perks anakonza.
Times’ please spare us and be professional and replace this stutter Kasakula with more articulate people who can get a sentence out. STOP THIS POOR REPRESENTATION ON YOUR PROGRAMS. Take Kasakula off TV and let him do the editorial work he was hired to do. Forget his ambitions for grandeur, he is not TV material. Doesn’t Times have more competent stutter-free TV ready journalists to save this media house?!
MEDIOCRITY EXHIBIT A
Also, Kasakula and team need to provide rationale of what basis some deputies performed better than their principles. These people are confused between “busy work” and “productive work”
WHERE IN THE WORLD DOES A PERSON WHO SCORES 70% CALLED A STAR?!
Assessment aside, this problem of overrating themselves isso rampant in UTM to the extent that there is nothing wrong they see in Chilima. How on earth did you expect a high score for a Minister of Economic Planning who has failed to produce even a bizzare economic recovery plan post DPP mismanagent and Covid pandemic? He spends most of his time inspecting roads as if he is Minister of Transport. And where are the so called reforms now? Za ziiii
When Kasakula talks trash he thinks he is intelligent. Let him participate in a hot debate with other people so Malawi measure his IQ. He always talks rubbish, defending MCP even when he knows it is party of darkness and the leader of the party has so far proven a big failure.Mr. Chiakadya if you are not careful with Kasakula, people will match demanding your ouster because both you and Kasakula are irrelevant. You want to turn back this country to one party system. We are aware Kasakula is trying to leaks boots of MCP powerful people so that he gets recommended for a job somewhere, but he won’t get it on a silver platter – he will have to compete with well qualifies people who are also bonafide Malawians. Your government dismissed Mkolokosa claiming he was not properly employed. The same government improperly brought in Chikumbutso Mtumodzi, you made no noise about it. To you Chakwera was a performer by bringing in this thief.What kind of journalism are you practising where you choose to turn a blind eye on wrong things? MCP would not have been in government today without UTM and now because you are deeping your roots into the system, you are turning against the game changers.
Lost sheep.
Why do you keep bringing this nonsense up about UTM? MCP is in power because they won in 2019 and then exposed and proved the rigging in a court of law with iron-clan evidence; which UTM had a minimal contribution.
Did UTM not already concede the election to DPP?
Stop this nonsense. With 50+1 no-one could have won alone.
MCP never won in 2019, lets get the facts straight, they couldnt even have won alone in 2020, respect your alliance partners, otherwise you are licking the MCP ass
Whether one likes it on not MCP won. Stupid UTM supporters keep trying to bring confusion by constantly saying MCP won because of UTM. They won because of a broad coalition but you fools try to elevate UTM like some grand party. Its a baby in party politics run as a one-man show and yet the supporters act like we are all stupid.
SKC conceded to APM. Dr. Laz never did and said he was ready to shed his blood for a fair election. UTM & MCP went to court. UTM only had gwalidi who only had hearsay, whereas MCP had all the evidence to the T.
The demise of UTM with its less than 10 MP will be because of arrogance and a sense of entitlement. Wait your turn. Mature first.
Conceding defeat is a sign of civilization not necessarily endorsing anything. Who went to court first between Chakwera and Chilima. Chilima is a pace setter, others are simply followers.
Shaaaa!
Now we are on “Who went to court first”
Koma ziliko. UTM only went to court after seeing the evidence and complaints brought by MCP. SKC had already accepted the DPP rigging. That is a fact.
MCP initially wanted a recount because they had a proper tally center that had accurate numbers from the constituency. Since Ansah took time to do the recount, the next remedy was to go to court. And what evidence did UTM bring to the case?
Please check your facts. MCP did not win. MCP are in Government with the help of UTM and the other parties which formed the alliance. Both MCP and UTM lost in 2019 but because they formed the alliance that is why they worn.
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George Kasakula and your Sunday Times team kutukwanidwa konsenku nchifukwa choti mwakhonza kuti Chakwera wamposa Chilima with later scoring 10% lower at 60%. Munakangoyelekeza kulakwitsa kumpatsa Chilima 70% tinakabooka mmimba. Chakwera anakanyozedwa koopsa.
What did one expect,George Kasakula the biggest turncoat in the history of Malawian journalism,during the hot current program,he always emphasized that he had nothing personal against the Dpp government,but since they were the ones who were in the cockpit they were open to criticism for failure to stee r the country in the right direction,since coming of his beloved party in power,all of a sudden he’s got cold feet now he says people not qualified to judge MCP’s six months at the helm.what double standards,he wants people to adopt ,no hear evil,no talk evil ,no see evil attitude with the current government.Mr Kasakula Malawi will always be bigger than any single individual or any political party,owe your allegiance to you readers,to your listeners,to your country than to your bungling,thieving politicians.
I agree. kASAKULA, will leave no flattery stone unturned in his quest to curry favour from politicians in power. What shallow journalism from this dude. Did you notice how emotional he was in trashing teachers request to be considered for Covid allowance? I think he should step down and allow objective journos to take over.
Peter Phiri does not know what he is talking about. Mkaka Civil Engineer how is surviving.
Useless assessments by the biased pro MCP newspaper. Just repeating the same mistakes the previous DPP, UDF governments were making. Looks like Malawians do not learn lessons from the past. Times gives 70% to Chakwera, who the whole country knows is sleeping on the job, busy talking and no action. 70% for someone who is sharing the table with the corrupt former president. Chawera is a man of words and no action. So far no one from the previous DPP regime has faced the law despite well known corruption at grand scale.
Then they give 60% to someone who has the energy and shown desire to make changes to the archaic public sector. Absolute shambles.
What sort of criteria were Times using to make the assessment? The politically-driven assessment aimed at discrediting certain politicians, will only make those targeted individuals strong. Again, it appears Times has not learned lessons from the past mistakes by others. The more they try to drag other politicians in the mud, the more popular those politicians will become.
Times, tell your sponsor the president to go and arrest those DPP crooks who stole our taxes. Tell your sponsor the president to make appointments which represent all Malawians not just from one region. Tell your sponsor the president to curb the never-ending blackouts. The list of failures by Chakwera is very long. So the 70% Times gave him is a sham.
It is important to always remember that when cleaners make your office premises clean, it is the General Manager who gets credit for keeping the premises clean. In this case, you cannot rate a Vice President, who gets instructions from his/her boss to do certain things, higher than the president. Am sorry, but that is the reality of life.
malawians always eager to get negatives of others and expecting themselves to attain positive outcomes in their own dealing.
Chikadya is mcp diehard, times is owned by kamuzu family /mcp. So the assessment is trash, mavi yenecho. In fact should be withdrawn. This government is rated at zero. Just another bunch of thieves and embiciles running our country.
What a shame. Where is Newtone Kambala? He should have scored over 70%. He is energetic, vibrant and corrupt free.
Next time the assessment criteria need to be transparent and clear-cut. So many issues are involved when evaluation people.
Zopusa basi. Times is PRO MCP and u cant expect them to bite the hand that feeds them
Foxnews backs Republican party washington post and Newyork times backs Democratic party and here in MW Nation News paper used to back UDF what wrong Times group leaning MCP? lets be matured Mr.Chiswa, this is democracy .
Yes its democracy but democracy does not mean rating one tribe highly at the expense of other tribes. In that assessment nearly all Chewas have been given high scores while most Northerners and Southerners have been lowly rated. On what basis was Chakwera given 70% if non of his ministers scored that high? The score of the ministers, collectively, should be a reflection of the performance of the president. If a minister fails and the president still maintains him in cabinet, isn’t that failure on the president?
Well said.
Not yet well said. Wait a minute. Who gets the praise when a nation’s economy grows? Is it not the state president or Prime Minister, whichever is used? Even if the president has no iota of economics, it is the president who gets the praise. Why? He is the one on the driving seat. When a state fails, whether by genuine failure by the leader or by way of sabotage, the president gets the blame. He/she can even be impeached for crimes not necessarily committed by him/her – why? He/she is on the driving seat. There is nothing wrong therefore in rating the president higher than any other person. Remember the pledges of oaths and allegiance the people you think could have been given higher scores? Among others, they pledge to be loyal to the president. This is the only reason the president cannot score less than his/her subjects …. pepani
I am from the south ,and one of those who did vote dpp out from power chifukwa Cha uchitsiru ngati ukuchitika lerowu. Mumpasa bwanji 60 percent munthu oti mkupita ku indiako kukangoikisa tsitsi mmutu . Mabi eni eni ati?
Well said MCP is taking us for granted honestly, but with 50+1 they can only dance for 3 more years we cant afford having such mafia leadership at the helm of govt