Malawians should take stock of development and thank God for Mutharika’s presidency — Chiumia

As the countdown to next year’s Tripartite elections draw near, it would be appropriate to focus on the state of the nation and judge the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) based on its performance, Minister of Civic Education, Culture and Community Development Grace Chiumia has said.

The DPP  has come under increasing public criticism and the political narrative has turned against it that it has failed to fulfil its electoral pledge it made with Malawians in 2014.

Most domestic political discourse is centred on delivery of development and services to the public.

But speaking in Parliament,  Chiumia said: “As Malawians, need to take stock and audit ourselves all the time when we are doing things. Have we taken time to see which way Malawi is developing? We have not. All we say is that there is no development. Seriously, let us go back and see.

“There are so many areas. Have we checked on the issues of road infrastructure, water, education and try to analyse and see which way Malawi is developing? If we do that then we can realise that indeed there is development in this country.”

She queried opposition legislators for saying that there is no development when they keep passing budgets in the House .

“We are being given up to K23 million to develop our constituencies, what have we done with the money? We should start assessing our constituencies. Let’s look at what development has taken place since we became Members of Parliament. Let us start from our constituencies and see which way we have taken our constituencies to since we took over the leadership. It is from there that we can really assess if we have developed our areas or not,” Chiumia said.

Chiumia applauded President Mutharika   for the developmental projects he has done in since he became Head of State in 2014 after  defeating Joyce Banda  when the country had a broken economy, stagnated projects and smashed hopes.

She said Mutharika “has done a lot” in his first five-year term despite not being supported by donors.

“ I am sure that as Malawians we need to thank God for giving us such a leader,” said Chiumia.

 She echoed Mutharika’s statement in his state of the nation address (Sona), saying:  “The question is not whether Malawi is developing or not, the question is; which way is Malawi developing?”

The minister said the Mutharika administration has indeed  proven that it can transform this country and  make Malawi a prosperous nation.

“I think this culture of keeping on pointing fingers at each other will not take us anywhere. Seriously, it is high time people saw what we really have done,” said Chiumia.

She continued: “God is watching us. He has given us the talents and unless we utilise those talents we will not achieve anything but all in all we need to love each other and unite for the benefit of the people of this country.”