Latest news with #Chakwera
The Star
21-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
Malawian president hails Chinese contractor for "outstanding" project
LILONGWE, May 21 (Xinhua) -- China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) has been recognized by the government of Malawi for an "outstanding" road project in the southeastern African country. Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera awarded the contractor a trophy on Tuesday during the commemoration of National Construction Day held in the national capital of Lilongwe. CCECC's project, featuring the construction of a 4.2-km Kenyatta Road linking Lilongwe Old Town to Lilongwe City Center, stood out among many nominated projects. The new six-lane road, which is nearly complete, has reduced travel time from the city center to the old town from about an hour to about 10 minutes during peak hours. Speaking at the National Construction Day celebrations, Chakwera praised several construction projects implemented during his term, including those undertaken by Chinese contractors. The Malawian government also recognized local veteran architects for their outstanding contributions to the country's construction industry. Meanwhile, CCECC is constructing the Kaphatenga-Dwangwa (M005) road, reconstructing it to a bituminous standard with an asphaltic concrete surface. The road is part of the lakeshore road on the coastal plain between Lake Malawi and the plateau to the west.
Zawya
07-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
President of Malawi receives Abdullah bin Zayed
Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of Malawi, received H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the presence of Nancy Tembo, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malawi, at the beginning of Sheikh Abdullah's working visit to the capital, Lilongwe. During the meeting, H.H. Sheikh Abdullah conveyed the greetings of President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Presidential Court, to the Malawian President, along with their wishes for development and prosperity for the Republic of Malawi and its people. For his part, President Chakwera conveyed his greetings to His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid and His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, and his wishes for further progress and prosperity for the UAE. H.H. Sheikh Abdullah and President Chakwera discussed opportunities to enhance bilateral cooperation across various fields, particularly in the economic, commercial, investment and development sectors, in addition to other areas of mutual interest. His Highness affirmed that the UAE attaches great importance to strengthening bridges of cooperation with Malawi and establishing effective development partnerships that support both countries' aspirations for sustainable growth and prosperity. He also highlighted the UAE's commitment to deepening its partnerships, especially economic ones, with all friendly African countries. H.H. Sheikh Abdullah expressed his pride in visiting Malawi and meeting President Chakwera, and extended his appreciation for the warm welcome and generous hospitality. Following the meeting, Sheikh Abdullah and the Malawian President witnessed the signing of five Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) between the two countries. The first MoU, between the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malawi, focuses on diplomatic training and was signed by Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan Al Nahyan, Minister of State, and the Malawian Minister of Foreign Affairs. The second MoU, in the field of investment between the two countries, was signed by Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan and Vitumbiko Mumba, Minister of Trade and Industry in Malawi. The third MoU, concerning investment cooperation in the minerals sector, was signed between the governments of the UAE and Malawi by Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan Al Nahyan, Minister of State, and Kenneth Zikhale Ng'oma, Minister of Mining in Malawi. Furthermore, the fourth MoU, focusing on cooperation in the digital learning initiative, was signed between the Digital School, an initiative of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, and the Government of Malawi by Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan and Nancy Tembo. The fifth MoU, signed by Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan and Vitumbiko Mumba, was between the Federation of UAE Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Malawi's Ministry of Trade and Industry, and pertains to the establishment of the joint UAE-Malawian Business Council. The meeting was attended by Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan Al Nahyan, Minister of State, Saeed Mubarak Al Hajeri, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Economic and Trade Affairs, and Khalifa Abdulrahman Al Marzouqi, UAE's Non-Resident Ambassador to Malawi. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Arab Emirates, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Star
25-04-2025
- Business
- The Star
Malawi president calls for more foreign investment in mining, tourism sectors
LILONGWE, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera has called for more foreign investment in the African country's mining and tourism sectors to help transform its economy. Chakwera made the remarks on Thursday evening in Lilongwe during the official opening of the sixth Malawi International Tourism Expo, which has attracted over 40 foreign dignitaries and more than 50 local organizations. According to Chakwera, Malawi has various mineral resources such as gold, uranium and rutile. He encouraged foreign investors to take advantage of the opportunities available in the country's mining sector. Besides mining, Chakwera said, Malawi's tourism sector also offers opportunities that are open and ready for foreign investment. The president said that his government has removed visa restrictions for nearly 100 countries, making this an ideal time for foreign investors to come to Malawi and invest in both tourism and mining. The Malawi International Tourism Expo is held annually to promote the country's resources and products, ranging from agriculture to tourism and mining, in an effort to attract potential investors. This year's edition runs from Thursday to Saturday.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Chakwera Has Wasted Malawi's Democratic Breakthrough
On Sept. 16, Malawi's voters will go to the polls to elect the Southern African country's president, members of parliament and local officials. The presidential contest will be a repeat of the 2019-2020 elections, once again pitting incumbent President Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Part, or MCP, against his predecessor, former President Arthur Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP. The 2019 and 2020 elections in Malawi were unprecedented, as the Constitutional Court overturned the May 2019 results that had seemingly awarded Mutharika a second term in office and ordered a rerun. The subsequent June 2020 ballot resulted in Chakwera's victory. The landmark ruling was just the second time that an African high court had ordered a presidential election to be rerun—Kenya's did so in 2017—but the first in which the subsequent poll led to the defeat of an incumbent. Amid the international acclaim that followed, The Economist named Malawi its 2020 Country of the Year, declaring that 'its people are citizens, not subjects.' In 2022, the magazine opined that 'Malawi has saved its democracy,' and the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden recognized it as a 'democratic bright spot.' The political accolades came with financial benefits for Malawi, as well, as tens of millions of dollars' worth of additional foreign assistance flowed into the aid-dependent country, in an effort to further boost the new government's prospects. The assumption among many observers was that the democratic triumph that brought Chakwera to office and the momentum it generated would create the political will to address corruption, governance, health care and other challenges that have plagued Malawi since before its independence. Five years later, however, most socioeconomic conditions and virtually all governance indicators in Malawi remain unchanged. To get more in-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs from WPR, sign up for our free Daily Review newsletter. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, among the bottom 10 in most indices. The poverty rate, which was already over half the population when Chakwera took office in 2020, has continued to grow, as has food insecurity, inflation and emigration. Malawi has been forced to devalue its currency several times and recently was paralyzed by fuel shortages. And while Chakwera initially won some praise for dissolving his Cabinet due to corruption allegations in 2022, corruption has continued with impunity. Some of economic indicators have been affected by factors outside of the government's control. The population is over 80 percent rural, for instance, and depends on rain-irrigated subsistence agriculture and imported fertilizer, making it vulnerable to shifting weather and market conditions. So the droughts and cyclones that have affected the region played a role in Malawi's worsening economic conditions, as well as global inflationary trends. But they were compounded by the Chakwera government's missteps, including mismanagement and a failure to enact needed economic agricultural subsidy reforms. Not surprisingly, the government's favorability ratings have taken a hit: A 2024 Afrobarometer survey found that 76 percent of respondents believe that Malawi is going in the wrong direction, with less than 30 percent approving of the government's performance in fighting corruption, managing the economy and improving living standards. These challenges have fueled discontent among voters in the runup to the elections. Many were further disillusioned by the death of former Vice President Saulos Chilima in a plane crash last June. Chilima was popular with youth who supported his message of structural reforms and well-positioned to contest the presidency under his United Transformation Movement, or UTM, party. The UTM subsequently nominated Dalitso Kabambe, a former Central Bank governor, as it new candidate, but he is unlikely to attract the necessary support to mount a realistic challenge to Chakwera and Mutharika. Instead, Chilima's death fundamentally transformed the political landscape, clearing the way for Mutharika's re-emergence as the main opposition candidate. And given Malawi's changed political dynamics and economic challenges, he is now the frontrunner. A recent poll saw 43 percent of respondents express their intention of voting for him, compared to 29 percent for Chakwera. However, his chances are complicated by several factors, including the need to win a 50-percent majority in a field that includes several smaller parties with ethno-regional support bases. This has led to a fierce competition between Chakwera and Mutharika to forge elite coalitions ahead of the election. The current electoral cycle has already drawn criticisms from civil society and the opposition for what has been characterized as ineffective preparation and lack of fairness. The rollout of a phased voter registration process meant to create a fresh registrar of voters was messy: Registration required identity cards, but while many Malawians applied for the document months ahead of time, many did not receive it in time and were turned away at registration sites. This disproportionately affected opposition strongholds, which went first during the phased process, with some observers speculating this was by design. Eventually, a supplemental phase had to be added to accommodate those who were unable to complete the process despite having adequate documents. There were also instances of the abuse of state resources, including payments to chiefs to ensure high registration tallies in areas favorable to the MCP. While the rocky registration process may not have been deliberate, it deepened the distrust many Malawians already had in the Malawi Electoral Commission's ability to impartially administer the electoral process, given that the court ruling forcing a rerun of the 2019 ballot centered on irregularities in the tabulation process and concerns about the commission's independence. Beyond logistical challenges, many concerns have also been raised about Chakwera's use of government institutions to weaken the opposition. This first gained attention in 2022, when Chilima—then the vice president—was arrested for graft allegations and removed from his duties, moves that he and his supporters argued were politically motivated. The charges were later dropped and he was reinstated, but the distrust of Chakwera has lingered, evident in the fact that, despite inquiries finding otherwise, many believe the plane crash that killed Chilima was an assassination. This distrust has been compounded by the recent arrests of opposition figures ranging from parliamentarians to regional party leadership on charges of corruption, as well as one for allegedly planning to assassinate the president. One of the most notable incidents came in January, when four leading DPP figures were arrested on graft charges related to their previous government positions. The allegations may have some merit, but the timing of the arrests so close to the election, and the fact that Chakwera has ignored substantiated corruption allegations concerning his allies, exacerbates suspicions that they are politically motivated. Chakwera has also taken steps to try to prevent Mutharika from contesting the election, most notably with the introduction of an age-limit bill that would bar him from running. There has also been a rise in violence against opposition figures and anti-government protesters. Such attacks have occurred throughout Malawi's history, but this electoral cycle has seen an uptick. For instance, in November, machete-wielding youth disrupted an opposition protest over the voter registration process, and civil servants demanding pay increases were recently attacked. In both instances, police were present but did not intervene to stop the attacks, a hallmark of state and party-sanctioned violence in Malawi. The arrests of opposition figures and violence by party-affiliated actors are by no means new in Malawi. But the number of both in recent months is notable, as is the fact that they are occurring so far out from the election. It suggests that the MCP is likely aware that neither retail campaigning nor the traditional systems of patronage that dominate Malawian politics may be enough to win the election. Instead, the party is likely to go to even further lengths to attempt to maintain its grip on power, which it had not exercised since Malawi's return to democracy in 1994. All of this bodes poorly for an election that will be hotly contested and most probably see further instances of state violence and heavy-handedness. Ironically, these are the same techniques that the MPC condemned when they were used against it during previous electoral cycles. The tensions risk leading to widespread violence, particularly against women, people with albinism and other vulnerable populations. The events of 2019 and 2020 were without question an advance for democracy in Malawi. However, they did not remedy the economic and governance challenges the country faces. Indeed, the political climate ahead of the upcoming election, characterized by probable abuses of power and politically incited violence, underscores this. Despite benefiting from the 'democratic credit' generated by the events of 2019 and 2020, Chakwera and his government continued to abuse Malawi's powerful presidential system for their gain. Malawi's judiciary may very well be called on again to uphold the will of the people, but if so, it will mean that yet another volatile election has put the country's democracy in jeopardy. R. Maxwell Bone is an analyst whose writing has been published in Foreign Policy, New Humanitarian, African Arguments and other publications. He has served as an accredited international election observer in Nigeria and Mozambique. He holds a master's degree in African Studies from the University of Cambridge. You can follow him on Twitter at @maxbone55 and on Bluesky at @ The post Chakwera Has Wasted Malawi's Democratic Breakthrough appeared first on World Politics Review.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Malawi President Fires Trade Minister After Protest Over Prices
(Bloomberg) -- Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera fired his trade minister, a day after protests erupted in the capital over a cost-of-living crisis in the poverty-stricken southern African nation. NYC's Congestion Pricing Pulls In $48.6 Million in First Month The Trump Administration Takes Aim at Transportation Research Shelters Await Billions in Federal Money for Homelessness Providers NYC to Shut Migrant Center in Former Hotel as Crisis Eases New York's Congestion Pricing Plan Faces Another Legal Showdown Vitumbiko Mumba, who was appointed labor minister last month, will replace Sosten Gwengwe in the trade portfolio, Chakwera said in a statement in parliament in the capital, Lilongwe, on Wednesday. Consumer inflation in Malawi has exceeded 20% since July 2022, partly fueled by a drought that has increased the cost of corn — a staple food in the country of 21 million people. Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in September. Chakwera also blamed the 'cruel raising of commodity prices by greedy and lawless traders' for a jump in the cost of other basic goods including sugar, salt and cooking oil. He blamed the opposition for colluding with some traders to 'make Malawians suffer' ahead of the vote. Gwenge, a former finance minister, was the target of protesters' anger on Tuesday when he tried to address hundreds of demonstrators who marched on parliament. He was prevented from speaking further when members of the crowd began throwing stones at him. Trump's SALT Tax Promise Hinges on an Obscure Loophole Walmart Wants to Be Something for Everyone in a Divided America Meet Seven of America's Top Personal Finance Influencers China Learned to Embrace What the US Forgot: The Virtues of Creative Destruction Why Private Equity Is Eyeing Your Nest Egg ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
