Mutharika mad with PAC over ‘resignation’ call: Malawi President feels ‘ambushed’ with the recommendation in report
Malawi President Peter Mutharika on Thursday angrily accused quasi religious body, Public Affairs Committee (PAC) of ambushing him, saying the officials withdrew the original recommendations just to give him a set of new ones thirty minutes before the meeting which include demands that Mutharika should resign within 90 days if it fails to solve the social and economic problems currently besetting the country.
In a PAC report directly addressing President Mutharika titled: ‘Defining solutions to economic and political direction of Malawi’, the group has inserted the call for among the political governance recommendations of the conference.
“Government should resign in 30 or 90 days as it has admitted that it has failed Malawians and does not know what to do,” reads part of the report.
Mutharika, sounding angry, described this as unfair.
It later transpired that PAC officials hurriedly inserted a recommendation by main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and its parliamentary bedfellow, the Peoples Party (PP) to have Mutharika step down because his administration had completely failed to deal with the current economic and persistent food shortages.
However, during the frank face to face talk beamed live on state controlled Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), PAC chairman Felix Chingota did not bring out the issue.
But PAC has argued that both the recommendations and actionable plans are views of the public.
“As a country let us not continue to wait till the system collapses politically and economically then we start acting on these observations. Let us act now in order to prevent violent conflict in our country,” reads part of the report.
PAC reports to the President that Malawians are struggling in villages and poverty has become “a permanent friend to them.”
Mutharika, responding indirectly to the issue, said the economic and food shortages were not man made, saying God and nature are partly to blame.
He said the El Nino powered drought and floods have devastated the country and there was nothing his government would have done to fight El Nino.
Malawi Congress Party (MCP) presient Lazarus Chakwera said at an earlier news conference that Mutharika should not blame God or nature for the economic mess and persistent food shortages, saying the government economic and agricultural policies were upside down.
Chakwera blamed the Mutharika administration for refusing to take advice from the opposition on sound economic and agricultural policies.
The PAC report also includes a proposal for introduction of rotational presidency to give each region a fair chance of the presidency, the turning of Zomba State House and Mudi in Lilongwe into health facilities to cut on unnecessary State House expenditures while expanding healthcare.
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Am failing to understand PAC’s intention. I don’t mean zinthu zikuyendabwino no but what rotational presidential seat is all about? You mean ma regions amene sakhala ma presidentwo kuli anthu anzeru kwambiri to rule the nation? If this is the case let’s abolish democracy and start rotation. Is resignation going to serve the purpose? What’bout funds for re-election processes? What’bout the five year terms? Do we need to change our constitution in order to fulfil PAC’s ambitions? If the wife/hubby is failing in other areas is marrying another spouse a solution or help him/her to correct the mistakes? How sure… Read more »
if he resigns, who takes over. nonse mbuzi zokhazokha. you don’y even know what you are doing
Current grouping of this so called PAC is a composition of greedy politicians cum reverends. Which Malawians are they representing with those selfish demands? I, personally as a Malawian as well as a voter do not recognise the exisistence of this grouping and could no longer take it seriously. It seems as it doen’t have terms of reference and vision other than taking sides in their trying to bring sanity.
Which constitution allows to rotate the president?? Mwamwa ntonjani or what…..komatu anthu mukumva kuwawa. And some embiciles are claiming resignation calls are from majority Malawians…..you mistvbe daydreaming sure.
Ambushed, really stupid president. You knew about resignation calls when pac held its meeting, so you were not ambushed if that was included in their official report. What pac promised you is that they will not discuss with you face to face about the resignation calls because you would have refused to meet them. Pac kept their promise by not raising the resignation issue with you very dull head of state when they met you. They instead discussed other issues in their report which you wanted to discuss with them and which you failed miserably to respond. So the problem… Read more »
This is poor jounorism. The discussion between PAC and the President was live on the TV and it was repeated several times. Did you hear anyone from PAC talk about the resignation. The document you were talking about was given to the systems of the government well on time through the OPC. If indeed the president got it 30 minutes before time then it’s the problem of the government systems not PAC. After all the meeting was called upon because he knew what was to be discussed. The Chairman of PAC said it well that the document included everything that… Read more »
What are you talking about? PAC themselves have said they had removed that demand for APM to resign, from their document, before they got to the meeting, but decided to include it in their submission. Thus “ambushing” the President and all on the government side who were at the meeting. Now Akweni Kaliati has just given them (PAC) the mother load! They deserve it tood. And one faction, NOT Mulhomolhe’s I hope, won out in PAC after the meeting: a coup, essentially. Perhaps, the moderate faction was simply out maneuvered. PAC might have now burned their only bridge to the… Read more »
The cashgate and withdrawal of budget support occured in late 2013. Therefore Peter Mutharika and DPP knew of these problems when he campaigned for office of president. He said he has the solutions. Yet two years after becoming president Peter Mutharika and his 20 member cabinet has produced economic disaster with inflation at 24% and the Kwacha at K700 to 1US Dollar from 16% and K450 in May 2014 respectively. He favaours Lomwes in appointments to senior positions in public service. For example Tom Gray Malata is failing miserably as Commissioner General of MRA but cannot be removed because he… Read more »
PAC wait 2019 if you can manage to produce your own leader than the choice of Malawian
I agree with APM – our problems are God made. This stupid God created and gave Malawi a STUPID President
Stupid PAC Start the party if people can vote for you. Chakwera ndi amene akuononga dzikoli udikile 2019