Catholic bishop slams Malawi civil service as disaster
Outspoken Karonga Catholic bishop Martin Mtumbuka has described the country’s civil service as a disaster, saying this is why public service delivery is poor.
Mtumbuka said this on Saturday during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Ludzi Girls Secondary School.
H said the Catholic church runs various schools in the country both basic, secondary and tertiary education whose teachers and other officials come from all over the world but said the government delays in providing them with work permits.
“It takes ages to provide them with work permits and this compromises the quality of education in our schools…the civil service is a disaster, absolute disaster. Unfortunately, we cannot bring back the hard working civil servants who were there during the Kamuzu days,” he said.
Government officials were conspicuously missing at the function as the relationship between the church and the DPP led government continues to widen.
Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Lazarus Chakwera and United Transformation Movement (UTM) founding member Callista Mutharika were in attendance.
Bishop Mtumbuka had also no kind words for the government for abolishing tuition fees in secondary schools without consulting churches which run some schools.
Mtumbuka, who is also Education secretary for the powerful Catholic church, said this would compromise the quality of education in secondary schools including those run by the churches.
“They should increase grants in church run schools. The government should know that all the K90, 000 which the students pay go to buy their food and make their place of learning clean,” he said.
There was no immediate comment from the government.
Ah! Lero ndiye muziti bola Kamuzu a galu inu.
There is evil ando underperformance in the Catholic Church. What has the Bishop done about it?
In other worlds the civil service was great up until four years ago? miss me with that BS now.
Our existing government just does not have visionary leaders. We are heading to no where. I want to state my case this way: if APM is a professor of law one thing that would have benefited this nation is an effort by him to have a very balanced judicial system that functions properly and delivers to the needs of this country after all that is an area of his expertise. But as it stands many court buildings are in shambles let alone what happens inside of them. Lawyers are in the business of fleecing people instead of providing decent service… Read more »
Who ever interviewed the Bishop should also have asked him if it was ethical for Catholic priests to be caught up in imbroglio such as fathering children under the cover of darkness when in daylight they vowed celibacy or murdering people living with Albinism in order to get rich.
The whole of Malawi’s public service is compromised. It is now increasingly clear that even the judiciary, which had appeared some what clean in the past years is also heavily compromised… Corruption and fraud have become deeply entrenched such that the ONLY remaining solution is to retire every one in service and start recruiting afresh… It is that serious… Whoever hasn’t realized this…. Is so naive about malawi, it’s workings, and the political economy … Or is part of those benefiting from the mess… As a starting point… All City council employees should be retired (or contracts terminated) let them… Read more »
Preach the word of God…and not politics always
Mark my word anyone writing agaiy what Bishop Mtumbuka said is either thick up there or is part of the inefficient, thieving, plundering corrupt administration. Trouble is that a Chimwene Che APM is not in control of things but relies on duping advisors.
By the way, Tery, the foreign teachers being referred to by the Bishop are for Catholic University and not secondary schools.
That is it bishop. The civil service also contains the Catholic faithful in it. What do you teach them when they are in each. We may blame the government, but what do we do as a church. Do we encourage our Christians to be good examples in their public offices? Do we teach them Ethical values? Do they show that they are ambassadors of Christ in their work? If we are to teach them better things they can be spheres of influence in their ministries. They can fight corruption, laziness and promote hardworking spirit. Why do you have to invite… Read more »
We dont need foreigners to teach at a secondary school
Malawian teachers r all useless, dont know where they got their qualifications,