{"id":2864,"date":"2011-06-27T11:42:42","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T11:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=2864"},"modified":"2011-06-27T11:42:42","modified_gmt":"2011-06-27T11:42:42","slug":"presidents-very-disappointing-civil-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/06\/27\/presidents-very-disappointing-civil-society\/","title":{"rendered":"President’s very disappointing \u2013civil society"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"LILONGWE (Malawi Democrat) Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika\u2019s June 24 national address on fuel and forex shortages and the zero-deficit budget was very disappointing as it failed to give hope to Malawians, civil society groups have said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he said didn\u2019t solve a thing and never offered any hope,\u201d Malawi Congress of Trade Union (MCTU) secretary general Mr Robert Mkwezalamba said in a media statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time he was speaking, millions of Malawians were queuing for the same item he was talking about. They heard his voice while at a filling station. Obviously, it didn\u2019t make sense to them. We needed assurances and apologetic remarks.\u201d<\/p>\n

MCTU said Malawians were actually looking for was an apology for the appalling situation the country but were disappointed that Wa Mutharika in his speech \u201cfailed to even express one sentiment of apology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would have loved if he should have been leader enough to say: \u2018Malawians, I am sorry for the difficulties you are going through.\u2019 May be it would have been the only different thing we ever heard from him,\u201d said the MCTU leader.<\/p>\n

On the zero-deficit budget, Mkwezalamba said according to people\u2019s sentiments, it is clear that no one is saying no to the zero-deficit budget but the people are against the rushed way the plan has been brought and the method of funding such as the heavy taxes. Mkwezalamba argued that as such, President Wa Mutharika was expected to meet the people half way on the tax matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other words, he only proved whatever people have said on the budget. He is not going anywhere, but will implement the zero-deficit budget and it shall be fully funded by the poor working and productive Malawians.<\/p>\n

\u201cMalawians want solutions to their problems not long and repeated speeches; hence, the address neither answered the questions nor solved the problems but only aggravated peoples\u2019 frustrations as the problems continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) chairman Mr Undule Mwakasungula said the President\u2019s address was \u201cdisappointing and unconvincing\u201d as it lacked substance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe address did not bring any hope to Malawians as he once again did not take the blame on the crisis. He pushed the blame on fuel to suppliers and on chronic forex shortage to IMF,\u201d Mwakasungula is quoted saying in\u00a0The Nation<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>MWAKASUNGULA: Wa Mutharika unconvincing<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Said Mwakasungula: \u201cMalawians want him to address the economic and political challenges. He should show he is committed to good governance, promotion and protection of human rights. That is the only way Malawians will have hope in him; otherwise, Malawians currently have little hope in his handling of national issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his address, Wa Mutharika said he does not understand why Malawians are doubting his leadership now after he has brought development to the country.<\/p>\n

He blamed private companies for the fuel and forex shortages, IMF for the forex problems, the opposition for not providing alternative solutions to the crises and he also backed his zero-deficit budget.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LILONGWE (Malawi Democrat) Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika\u2019s June 24 national address on fuel and forex shortages and the zero-deficit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[525,821,755,258],"class_list":["post-2864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dpp-3","tag-bingu","tag-civil","tag-fuel","tag-malawi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}