Chitipa to become a major corridor for trade between Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia—Chakwera

* So, to the 86,000 registered voters in Chitipa, I say this: Be ready to hear other parties this year offering to take Chitipa backward

* But remember that the reason I am here is to continue taking your development forward

* As he celebrates four years of administrative achievements in his State of the Nation address in Parliament

By Aliko Munde, Priscilla Phiri & Sheminah Nkhoma, MANA

President Lazarus Chakwera says he plans to see Chitipa become a major corridor for trade between Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia and home to a major city that facilitates that tri-nation trade.

Chakwera made remarks yesterday during the State of National (SONA) address he made in Parliament, entitled: ‘Taking Our Development Forward to Continue the Progress We Have Delivered’.

The President said that his government wants to stay focused on completing the developments implemented Chitipa: “Because of these developments that we have either delivered or are making progress in Chitipa, we want to stay focused on completing them going forward, especially I plan to see Chitipa become a major corridor for trade between Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, and to see Chitipa become home to a major city that facilitates that tri-nation trade.

“We have made great strides in advancing Chitipa’s human capital development in the past four years. Specifically, we have collaborated with five communities in Chitipa to build each a community day secondary school, which can now be found at Chuba, Namapasa, Namasasa, Karopa and Ngoya, which are in addition to the seven primary school blocks and 26 secondary school blocks we have built to improve enrolment figures in the district.

“So, to the 86,000 registered voters in Chitipa, I say this: Be ready to hear other parties this year offering to take Chitipa backward, but remember that the reason I am here is to continue taking your development forward.”

Chairperson for Chitipa District Council, Councillor Ronald Kayira, thanked the Chakwera-led administration for initiating developmental projects in Chitipa, saying what he has stated in the SONA during the opening of the 2025-2026 budget session of Parliament is a true reflection of what is in the district.

Kayira said Mafinga and Marko irrigation schemes are in operation after K6.1 billion was invested adding that this is the right direction as a country to ensure that people have food and money.

“Like other districts, Chitipa has also benefited from these CDSSs. We have Chuba, Namapasa, Namasasa, Karopa but also Ngoya. I confirm that what is in the SONA gives a true reflection of the development delivered in Chitipa,” Kayira said.

Among other developments, the government has installed a communication tower at Mughese in Misuku. The government has also brought electricity to 171 centres and connected 2,054 houses to electricity through the Malawi Rural Electrification Programme (MAREP 9) and the Malawi Electricity Access Project (MEAP) projects respectively.

The government has also installed home-solar facilities in 4,333 homes including extending free water connection to 89 houses and providing loans amounting to K2.6 billion disbursed to 4,477 beneficiaries who have started their business ventures.

Chakwera expressed satisfaction in his four years of administrative achievements towards moving Malawi forward to self-reliance — asserting that throughout his 1,684 days in office, the country has gone through a painful surgical shift which has in turn proven to yield tremendous results in the country.

He outlined several developments that his administration has delivered in four years of his leadership including education, health, water and sanitation, and energy among others.

In terms of agriculture, President Chakwera mentioned that in four years, his administration has managed to provide food security to Malawian households even in the toughest weather conditions across the country through initiatives such as El Niño lean season support among others.

“Karonga suffered serious dry spells in 2023, which destroyed over 10,500 hectares of rice and over 8,500 hectares of maize. Leaving over 38,500 families in Karonga without food overnight,” he said.

“So, what we have done in four years is to ensure Karonga has a backup plan for growing food in and out of season, even when it does not rain. We have done this by rehabilitating four previously neglected irrigation schemes, namely Wovwe, Hara, Chonanga and Ukanga for both maize and rice production, which should benefit from the Nthola-Ilola Rice Scheme where we have installed a rice-milling plant that is fully operational.

He further mentioned that farmers across the country have benefited greatly from the affordable inputs programme (AIP) among other initiatives which have enabled them to procure fertilizer and other farm inputs at a low price.

His administration has also made remarkable progress in infrastructure development such as schools, hospitals, roads and bridges among many which are set to usher Malawians to sustainable economic growth.

“We have completed and operationalised the One-Stop-Border Post, reducing customs clearance time by 70% in Mwanza, set up a one-stop border post in Likangala, Phalombe to enhance security and boost revenue collection.”

Economically, Chakwera stated that his administration has improved access to business loans through National Economic Empowerment Fund (NEEF), social cash transfer programme (SCTP) and climate smart cash support to boost agriculture and businesses in the country and extended to raising civil servants’ salaries to alleviate the financial burdens that came with the country’s economic challenges.

He revealed his plans to transform Likoma Island into a world-class tourism hot spot that will be utilised as a tool to generate forex through foreign investor agreements that have been made.

“As we work on developing new vessels for our lake, I am committed to ensuring that the investors from Germany and the Middle East involved in this project are fully incentivised to fulfil this promising venture.

“The vision includes a city teeming with tax-exempt resorts, hotels, casinos, and banks backed by our precious metals like gold, which will support a thriving crypto Stablecoin market linked to USDC and USDT cryptocurrency markets worldwide, ultimately enhancing US$ liquidity in Malawi.”

The President went further to reaffirm his vision of advancing the country’s development in years to come by saying what he has achieved in the four years of his leadership is proof of his commitment to self-reliance in Malawi.

In an interview, President of Economics Association of Malawi (ECAMA), Bertha Bangala Chikadza, said she expects to hear more from the 2025-2026 upcoming budget meeting on the future of Malawi’s economy.

“We believe that the budget will be in line with the MW2063 Implementation Plan (MIP1) and we expect to see more on employment and human productivity since the economy is unstable so the productive sector needs to have more investment,” she said.

We bring you the preamble to his SONA address at the opening of the 51st Session of Parliament and 2025-2026 Budget:

“Madam Speaker, One Thousand! Six Hundred! Eighty-Four! That is the number of days that have passed since that crisp July morning on which I was inaugurated as the 6th President of the Republic of Malawi on our Motherland’s 56th birthday.

On that historic day, I told the Malawian people that despite our victory over the dark forces that had stolen an election from them, the task they had given me as President to correct the decades-long mismanagement of our natural and national treasures and institutions, would require all of us to endure what I called ‘the pain of systemic surgery if we ever want to enjoy wholeness as a nation’.

Today, it is clear that the systemic surgery we have undergone in the past four years has indeed been painful.

In 2020, it was painful to some in the trucking business, when I declared that I would focus on bringing Malawi’s dead railway system back to life. That same year, it was also painful to some, Madam Speaker, when I declared that my Administration would open a diplomatic mission in Israel to restore our lost friendship with a great friend of our people.

And again in 2021, it was painful to some when my Administration gazetted and enforced an SME order to reserve some Government contracts for local and Malawian-owned businesses, thus drying up the profits of those who had been profiting from giving most of those contracts to a few Asian businesses.

That same period, it was painful to some when I decided to take a huge sum of money meant for healthy Malawians in some sectors and used it to save many thousands of Malawians sick from Covid, which had already killed over a thousand people in a single month, including members of this House and senior members of my Cabinet.

And later that year, it was painful to some when I signed and enforced a new Employment Act to ensure that those who treat Malawian labourers like property would face consequences, just as it has been painful to many employers that I have twice raised the minimum wage so that it is now triple what it was when I took office.

And before that first year ended, there was another wave of pain to some when senior members of the Democratic Progressive Party were arrested because an independent audit I had ordered of the Reserve Bank of Malawi had revealed that before I took office, the books there had been doctored to prevent Malawians and the International Monetary Fund from seeing that hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign loans were being taken to hide the country’s depleted forex, but also revealed that just hours before the Malawi Electoral Commission declared me the winner of the court-ordered Fresh Presidential Election, the leaders of the Bank effected a transfer of over MK4 billion to a private bank.

And then in 2022, there was a lot of pain for our farmers, for that’s when Russia invaded Ukraine and caused the price of the fertilizers, we import from there to go up three times in six months, forcing us to accept that the global fertilizer prices by which we had promised that a 50kg bag would cost less than MK5,000 was no longer realistic, thus requiring us to raise the price.

You may recall, Madam Speaker, that 2022 is also the year I signed and enforced a new NGO Act, which ended the practice of allowing NGOs to operate in our country without registration or audits, and that also caused so much pain that some were lobbying to remove me.

But even in the public service, Madam Speaker, it caused great pain to some when I signed and enforced a new Public Finance Management Act, resulting in the arrest of dozens of civil servants caught trying to steal public funds and preventing all political parties from taking and using public funds for political rallies.

Similarly, I know it was painful to some, Madam Speaker, when I decided to give the Anti-Corruption Bureau more money, staff, and autonomy than ever, thus empowering the Bureau to confront the corruption of a few members of my own party and Government, or when I decided to suspend or dismiss them from public office so that as I stand here today, it is the Opposition party seated on my left, not my party or Cabinet seated on my right, that is keeping individuals in its top leadership who are answering corruption charges.

And I have no doubt that it was painful to some, Madam Speaker, that in that same year, I decided to channel huge sums of money away from their favourite programmes, to go towards vulnerable Malawians who had been devastated by Tropical Storms Ana and Gombe, as well as towards the rehabilitation of the storm-damaged Kapichira Power Station to end the 12-hour blackouts Malawians were experiencing.

I am also sure it was painful to some, Madam Speaker, that in the middle of that year, my name did not appear in the United Kingdom’s court documents listing Malawian officials suspected of corrupt dealings in public procurement.

As for 2023, Madam Speaker, you will remember how painful it was to some that I cut funding to many beneficial programs in order to invest in saving millions of lives from the worst scourge of cholera in our nation’s history and to provide emergency humanitarian support to over two million Malawians devastated by the worst Cyclone on record.

And who can forget, Madam Speaker, the pain that was felt by all Malawians, when 2023 ended with my decision to effect a 44% devaluation of the Kwacha and a four-month suspension of international travel for all public servants in order to fix the Kwacha’s misalignment that had been in place for over a decade without anyone doing anything to fix it.

And then came this past year, Madam Speaker, which came with the pain that was caused by my tough decision to cut spending in some areas in order to provide emergency maize to hungry families after 44% of our national food crop in 23 districts was destroyed by drought.

And before the year had ended, there came the pain caused by my decision to change Malawi’s procurement laws and policies towards a Government-to-Government arrangement that now disadvantages those who have been benefiting from fuel and fertilizer procurements in the Open Tender System, just as there are many who are not happy with my recent Executive Order requiring those who receive forex from abroad to pass it through the Reserve Bank where it can no longer be traded on the criminal black market.

But worst of all, Madam Speaker, it has been excruciatingly painful to feel our hearts breaking from the shocking and tragic death of late Vice-President Chilima and eight others; painful to feel our society being torn apart by political witch hunts and conspiracy theories about the accident; painful to read the Commission of Inquiry’s report detailing how they got on that plane, how they died, how various agencies responded when they lost contact with them, and how they were found; painful to see the bereaved families, whom I have personally spent time with, caught in a spiral of grief compounded by political exploitation and feelings of despair; and just two nights ago, we were powerfully reminded by Mrs. Mary Chilima herself about how painful it is to feel stuck with questions for which only our Heavenly Father has answers about what happened on that plane before it went down.

Madam Speaker, as you can see, pain has been our portion these past four years. And while the pain of losing loved ones has been caused by tragedies beyond our control, there is no question in my mind that the pain of losing opportunities has largely come from the systemic surgery I promised to do to prevent the use of Government as an instrument for the personal enrichment of a few and promote the use of Government as an instrument for the collective development of many.

The President thus presented “the good news that has come from the painful surgery on Malawi after four years of endurance from Malawians, the pain they have gone through because of this surgical shift from personal interest to national development” — which we will highlight in subsequent report.—Additional reporting by Maravi Express