Chakwera Presidential Charity – a charity arm of President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera – has donated MK120 million and 20 bales of blankets to the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) to enable the agency respond effectively to the needs of the Tropical Cyclone Freddy survivors.
President Chakwera handed officially handed over the donation in Lilongwe on Monday.
He said he was honoured to make his personal contribution to Operation Tigwirane Manja through his charity.
He thanked the private sector players who participated in the charity golf tournament six months ago and made it possible for his charity.
“I am hopeful that more private sector actors will also participate in this year’s charity golf tournament when the time comes so that we can avail more resources to the millions of Malawians that will continue to need assistance in the months following this Cyclone. This donation from my presidential charity is being made to the Department of Disaster Management Affairs for a reason. In the past, DoDMA was often used as a conduit for fraud and misuse of resources, which damaged its credibility,” said the President.
President Chakwera said it was against this background that he made changes in the leadership of DoDMA and tasked them to report directly to his office in order to restore the department’s credibility as a trusted agency for managing disaster situations that emerge.
He said he was proud to see that the department is now performing excellently in coordinating the response to the current national disaster, as well as in how quickly it takes action on any reports of people trying to take advantage of the situation for personal gain.
“I also want to thank all of you in the private sector who have made your donations directly to DoDMA during this operation, because your demonstration of confidence in government institutions is very critical when it comes to the sustainability of disaster management in this country. While we applaud the efforts of international aid agencies and non-governmental organizations in responding to these national disasters, we must never forget that over time and in the long term, our goal and objective must be to strengthen governance institutions and increase their capacity to deal with these matters themselves.
“We will never develop as a country if we continue perpetuating systems and structures that are well-intended, but whose long-term net effect is the weakening of the capacity and agency of our communities and our institutions,” said the President.
Chakwera said strengthening governance institutions like DoDMA is not a matter of personal preference, but a guiding policy of his administration.
Meanwhile, the Malawi leader has thanked SAVENDA Group of Companies, which donated the 20 bales of blankets to his charity.
