Mutharika challenges nepotism narrative, gives out statistics: North Malawi has key jobs in govt
Malawian President Peter Mutharika on Thursday stunned thousands of people at Bolero in Rumphi when he gave out statistics which contrary to civil society organisations (CSOs) assertions, proves that regardless of having bigger populations the Central region and the Southern region are in some cases the least represented in terms of senior government positions.
Mutharika made the comment after Minister of Transport Jappie Mhango raised the issue at a rally in Rumphi.
Mhango said that as a person from the northern region in Malawi he was concerned that some activist and critics accuse President Mutharika of nepotism when his appointments pattern and the situation on the ground in the civil society proves otherwise.
The Minister said it was sad that while President Mutharika has appointed four senior Cabinet Ministers from the northern region in his lean Cabinet of 20 out of four regions and distributes public appointments fairly ,some organisation’s like to paint a differenr picture all together.
Taking his turn, President Mutharika said he has always avoided to comment on the issue of nepotism hoping that objective Malawians will see that the accusations have no merit.
President Mutharika said the issue is “divisive”.
It was at this point that Mutharika gave statistics about senior government positions in relation to the region the holders come from.
According to the statictics on the ground show that positions in government are fairly distributed. For instance, in the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal and High Court of Malawi, he said the Northern Region has 13 judges, the South has 10, Central Region has four and Eastern Region has nine.
He specifically said Supreme Court of Appeal has nine judges with eight from the North, one from Centre while Southern Region has none on the bench.
In terms of senior servants, he said the Central Region has the most officers occupying grades A to E at 179 followed by the Southern Region with 158, Eastern Region—including Ntcheu District which in terms of administration is regarded as in the Central Region—has 144 and the North has 116.
The statistics provided by President Mutharika are in agreement to the ones given by the Chief Secretary to the government Lloyd Muhara a week ago in response to a petition delivered to government in April 2018 by CSOs .
The issue of nepotism was one of the issues raised in the petition.
The two civil society organisation’s Centre for Human Rights &, Rehabilitation CHRR and the Centre for Development of a People CEDEP that raised the issue are yet to challenge the statictics provided by the Government and now echoed by President Mutharika.
In response to the challenge presented by the statictics against the nepotism assertions, Human Rights Defenders (HRD) chairperson Timothy Mtambo described the response as an insult to Malawians.
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Thanks for good roads Prof.APM. Thanks in advance for Hewe road. Timavutika tikamakatenga tenants. it will be fast now. plz do it fast Chakwera asanatenge……Train other Lomwezi to be cadets otsalawo tidzatenga.
Ife kaya u win or not we don’t care yathu ndi business and work and employ lomwe garden boys, maids and tenants. this won’t change…….
Nepotism means “the practice among those with power or influence of favouring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs”. It doesn’t really matter whether Northern, Central Eastern or indeed Southern regions are well represented or overrepresented, in the senior and/or influential roles; the issue being challenged is that Peter Mutharika has favoured Lhomwes for senior and influential positions. They may only be 4 or 5 Lhomwes but these are relatives or friends occupying very senior and influential positions. Nepotism isn’t about representation but favouritism and the two shouldn’t be confused to mean the other. Cronyism on the hand means… Read more »
The so called CSO’s just want to attract peoples attention they must bring out their statistics too to prove their noise.Professor ndi Professor basi doesn’t talk without figures.
Lies, damned lies and statistics!! So goes the popular refrain. Who has vouchsafed the veracity of these stats? What’s their provenance? Knowing how economic the DPP machinery is in churning out truth, taking these stats at face value can only be at ones own peril!!!
Go home plz we are sick and tired of you
Pure statistical cherry picking by these dpp thugs. Produce the statistics from each ministry where top employees come from, you cannot just choose statistics that you like from very tiny portion of the whole govt. After all, can we really believe where these figures are coming from? Who verified them and how?
The president has fallen victim to confirmation bias. He is busy trying to get statics that supports his views, ignoring the whole picture. He needs to differentiate positions that are subjected to fair recruitment and selection processes from those he has the power to just wake up one day and appoint the person he likes. Even if some of those positions require confirmation by parliament, we cannot rely on our money hungry law makers whose allegiance can easily be bought. Furthermore, the law makers choice is limited to what the president has put forward for them to confirm. He cannot… Read more »
I can see now, there are some Malawians who can analyze things as human beings; thank you Charlie Hebdo, don’t just dance to a noise because it’s the president who is singing.
I like this. In boxing it means he is defending from real punches. Sunati. Let the southerners vote and we enjoy good jobs. You dominate politics we dominate economic gains.
You could have also brought statistics of tenants in Rumphi.kkkkkkkkkk.
kumwera muzivota tidzatengako lomwee tenants………
Is the quota system of selecting students into public universities good? That’s a bad system which DPP introduced because the selection has to be on merit not taking into account where one comes from. It was introduced to favour lomwes who instead of working hard in class to pass well in exams, busy zisembwere, look at what happens at mlakho wa alomwe, another platform of encouraging tribalism not promoting culture as they put it, spending millions on a gathering which does not add value at all. Mtundu wa alomwe was very behind in almost everything before Bingu came in and… Read more »
A warning to my fellow Malawians. This APM and his operatives had sat down to come up with a smokescreen to the nitty gritty component of nepotism. Consider the following: 1. The CSOs are not talking about the quantity, but the nepotistic conduct of this APM and the progressive diminishing of those who are non-Lhomwes while there is a gradual increase in those who are Lhomwes. If at one point, the Centre had 170 and the South had 100, then the Centre gets 179 and the South gets 158, would you say this is fair statistics? Consider the percentage at… Read more »
I think there many Malawians who do not know the meaning of NEPOTISM, check its meaning before you start defending your statistics. Check whose children get scholarships to go and study abroad, check who gets to be sent to embassies. It is not about being a judge. Ma judge sitichita kutola.