Opposition steps up efforts to destabilize free maize distribution to hunger-stricken Malawians

Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and United Democratic Front (UDF) have come under heavy criticism for putting spanners towards efforts to bail out starving households.

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The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) estimated last year that over four million Malawians would face acute food shortage during this year’s lean season, owing largely to the low yield the farmers realized due to the impact of Tropical Cyclone Freddy that hit 11 districts of Southern Region in March.

To avert starvation, President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera directed the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) and other government agencies to join hands in providing relief food to hunger-stricken families until the next harvesting season.

Government departments have since increased efforts to provide relief maize in the Southern Region. However, their efforts are being hampered by relentless disturbances from hidden hands suspected to be those of the DPP and UDF lawmakers.

A recent ugly incident took place at Khonjeni Trading Centre in Thyolo where distribution of the relief maize failed because violent youths, allegedly sent by senior DPP officials, disturbed the whole process.

“Their aim is to paint a bad picture of President Chakwera so that people here should believe their claim that the Head of State has failed,” a starving mother of two, while pleading for anonymity, confided. “These DPP officials are heartless. They can do everything, just to maintain their positions. They don’t care what happens to us.”

DPP and UDF seem to take happiness in deceiving and starving Malawians as a way to maintain their grip on power. During the UDF regime, trucks of maize would be ferried from one political rally to the other, without being offloaded while Malawians died of hunger.

It is probably against this background that they are bitter and jealous of the Chakwera administration, which has departed from politics of deception.

The Chakwera administration has refused to join a bandwagon of leaders who victimize Malawians on the basis that they do not enjoy popularity in certain areas or regions.

During his administration, former president Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika (APM) did not support people from Central and Northern Region districts because they denied him votes.

Mutharika directed abandonment of flagship projects in the Northern Region such as Mombera University, Mzuzu International Airport, Nkhata Bay-Mzuzu Road, Jenda-Edingeni Road, Nyika-Njakwa Road, M1 Road rehabilitation, among others.

He did all this to punish northerners who had hitherto declared that they would vote for Chakwera in the 2019 tripartite elections.

DPP Administrative Secretary Francis Mphepo publicly announced that Mutharika had directed the withdrawal of the development projects in the Northern Region because its people are ungrateful.