Chakwera upbeat Tonse promises to be fulfilled: ‘On our way to  Canaan… will never give in to despair and to negativity

President Lazarus Chakwera has promised that his Tonse alliance administration will fulfil its electoral manifesto which include free electricity connection and creation of one million jobs, adding that a policy is being formulated to see to it that the promises are achieve.

In his  televised address to the nation on Sunday from Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe on taxpayer funded MBC , Chakwera said government has put in place measures to see to it that Malawians are provided with safety nets as a relief from the challenges that are there due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said even though Covid-19 has led to delays in some projects his administration will make sure all promises in its manifesto are achieved.

Chakwera said the the government he  inherited  in June last year was not was not one with all the tools to  immediately end the economic pain people are feeling.

“I  wish I could tell you that the government I inherited was  the beginning of life in Canaan. But that is simply not  the case. To be sure, my administration has ended the  cruel political bondage we all suffered under the previous [DPP]  administration. But though we can rejoice that our  political slavery has ended, we must now wisely navigate the economic wilderness we have entered if we are going  to reach the promised land of a resilient and robust  economy of shared prosperity,” said Chakwera.

He said the wilderness his administration entered 245 days ago is a government  presiding over an economy of falling revenues.

The President said as  announced by my Minister of Finance in his Mid-Year  Budget Review Statement before Parliament on Friday,  K600.1 billion was projected to be collected  during the first half of the current financial year, yet  what we collected fell short of that target by 6 percent.

He said  wilderness his government entered is presiding over an economy of rising costs; unforeseen expenditures towards managing Covid-19 and the unforeseen expenditures for  readministering the Malawi School Certificate of  Education Examinations have contributed to an over- expenditure of 2.5 percent above the K974.6 billion targeted for the first six months.

“This has  necessitated an upward revision of the expected net  domestic borrowing in the second half of the financial  year by 34 billion Kwacha, a testament to the wilderness  conditions we are operating under,” he pointed out.

He further said the wilderness his administration entered was a  government presiding over an economy of severe job  losses and depreciating incomes. It was a government  with a public debt stock of 4.1 trillion Kwacha, which is  65% of GDP, with an interest bill of 376 billion Kwacha  to be met this fiscal year alone, which is more than triple  our budget for development.

“It was a government which  owed the Malawian business community K228.2 billion  for goods and services received but not paid for.  It was a government whose resources were being routinely and wantonly siphoned into political party  coffers.

“So, as we travel through this wilderness on our way to  Canaan, I am mindful of the economic pain that many of  you are still experiencing,” he said.

Chakwera said  his government has the economic reliefs put in place “to cushion  the poor against the economic aftershocks of the  pandemic, to revitalize the business sector, and to get  us back on track with our agenda for transformation.”

He said: “You entrusted us to govern on the  promise that we would deliver the Hi-5 Agenda that is  driven by the values of servant leadership, uniting  Malawians, prospering together, ending corruption, and  the rule of law.

“Our progress in advancing each of these  pillars towards building a new Malawi is steady and sure. “

Chakwera said the Tonse alliance review of the Civil Service to promote servant  leadership across the public sector is underway; and its refusal to employ the primitive tactics of denying  Malawians opportunities on the basis of their tribe or  region of origin is intact.

“Our fortitude in shutting the  doors of the public purse to those who wish to steal from  Malawians to finance their political parties and fatten  their bellies is unmoved; and our indiscriminate  application of the law to those who break it is constant.

“Even so, our implementation of an agenda of economic  transformation that guarantees that all Malawians  prosper together has slowed in the face of the pandemic.  However, though the pandemic may have delayed our  progress and affected our timelines for delivery, it can  never deter us from our resolve to deliver what we  promised Malawians as Tonse Alliance in the 2020 Fresh  Presidential Election Campaign.,”he said.

Chakwera said despite the efforts of  some to mislead the public into despair, the signs of Tonse alliance resolve to deliver what it promised are plain to see.

He highlghtes “a few clear examples:

• We promised a 75 billion Kwacha fund to give loans  to young people and women so that they can start  new businesses. Last year, we successfully  rebranded the Malawi Enterprise Development Fund  (MEDF) into the National Economic Empowerment  Fund (NEEF), which we restructured under new  management. This month, despite the pandemic, we  began rolling out this fund, beginning with the  disbursement of over 1 billion Kwacha to over 6000  people, mostly youth and women, who are the first  to benefit from a 40 billion Kwacha portfolio this  year, to be increased to 75 billion Kwacha next year. I am therefore calling on the new management of NEEF to speed up the rollout of the program to more beneficiaries.
• We promised a fertilizer subsidy program, and  despite the pandemic and many naysayers, we  delivered the Affordable Inputs Program (AIP) in  record time. As we speak, the program has supplied  345,652 metric tonnes of cheap fertilizer to 3,788,070 beneficiaries, more than double the  tonnage and beneficiaries of any program like it in  the past 10 years, and the flourishing maize fields  around the country speak for themselves. Going  forward, our focus will be the transformation of the  agricultural sector through mechanization at  production, irrigation, industrialization, and  commercialization levels.
• We promised to pursue industrialization through  the creation of Special Economic Zones where shells  will be reserved for SMEs of various sectors in a drive to move our entire economy towards  industrialization. The pandemic may have delayed  us in rolling this out, but we are not deterred from  seeing it done.
• We promised an ambitious infrastructure agenda,  including flagship road, housing, railway, and institutional projects across the country. The  pandemic may have delayed us in rolling this out,  but the construction of thousands of houses for  security agencies has already begun, because we are  not deterred from seeing it done.
• We promised free electricity and water connection,  and though the wilderness conditions we are under  may have delayed us in rolling this out, we are  developing a policy for implementing this in the  coming fiscal year, because we are not deterred from  seeing it done.
• We promised to create one million jobs for the young  men and women of our country. And deliberately, all  the programs we are implementing have a job creating effect, whether it is the AIP, or our new  policies for the promotion of SMEs, or our flagship  infrastructural projects, or our decentralization of  mask production. We are developing mechanisms  for quantifying all the jobs created through all our  initiatives and programs, and at an opportune time,  we will give you a portrait of where we stand.

Chakwera said Tonse Alliance will never give in to despair and we will  never give in to negativity but is  determined to ensure  that there is macroeconomic stability within the  economic framework within which we will be operating.

“We are determined to build a new Malawi, one step at a  time, one day at a time,” he said.

Chakwera, alongside Vice-President Saulos Chakwera passionately campaigned on a platform of rooting out corruption and transformation.

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