President Chakwera awarded honorary Maputo City citizenship

* The symbolic citizenship key represents honor to the respected men of Africa, who have fought for their people

* It underscores that the city of Maputo welcomes President Chakwera as its citizen

* Therefore, this key symbolises the opening of our country to the President of Malawi — Maputo Mayor Comiche

By Loness Gwazanga, MANA

Maputo City Mayor, His Worship Eneas Comiche, awarded Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera as an honorary citizen of the Mozambique city as a gesture of cementing the already existing ties for the benefit of the two countries.

Held at the city’s municipality offices on Friday, Comiche said the citizens of Maputo recognize Chakwera’s efforts through his performance and progress made in taking Malawi to greater heights since he was voted into power in 2020.

Chakwera was given a symbolic citizenship key, which Comiche said represents “honor to the respected men of Africa, who have fought for their people”.

“It underscores that the city of Maputo welcomes President Chakwera as its citizen. Therefore, this key symbolises the opening of our country to the President of Malawi,” Comiche said.

In accepting the honour, President Chakwera said Maputo is every visitor’s destination dream due to its magnificent sight of towering structures with sound commerce and productivity, saying has a lot to learn of Maputo in terms of city transportation management, housing, waste, manufacturing as well as construction.

“Maputo is not a city to read or hear about, but a phenomenon to experience and I am proud to hold a copy of its key which I intend to put good use in encouraging as many friends as I can to pay this historical city a visit,” he said.

“I am also grateful for the model city Maputo is, allowing countries like Malawi to have a clear and present example of how to advance the infrastructural development and socioeconomic growth of a city.

“And I am happy that Malawi is already on the fore front row of that classroom, on account of the close proximity and approximate relations between our two countries.”

Maputo covers a stretch of 3,000 square kilometers with 3,767 habitants per square kilometers. During rush hour, the city has two million people against the permanent 1.1 million habitats.

Chakwera, who is in Mozambique to cement the bilateral relationship that exists between the two countries, visited the Mozambican Parliament where he met its Speaker, Her Excellency Esperanca Laurinda Nhiuane Biass where they exchanged gifts as a symbol of unity.

During a state banquet hosted by President Filipe Nyusi, Chakwera said the Malawi and Mozambique bilateral relationship needs to be cemented further as it means serious business for the development of Malawi as a whole.

He said through the diplomatic ties, Malawi had found a true friend and partner and as a sitting Southern African Development Community (SADC) chairperson, he could not asked for a better person to take over from him other than President Nyusi.

“For this reason, I am always assured that anything I want to do to show that I mean business, will find a warm reception in Malawi’s partnership with Mozambique under President Nyusi’s able leadership.

“It should therefore come as no surprise that this state visit is continuing our shared philosophy of meaning business,” he said.

On his part, Nyusi said the two countries share a lot in common such as language, water sources as well as landscape and assured of his country’s support towards being a convenient partner in order to nurture Malawi’s social economic development through railway and infrastructure among others.

Nyusi then called upon the private sector from the two countries to work tirelessly with enthusiasm as any country’s development hugely depends on them.  

“Let me urge the two country’s private sector to be more daring in ensuring productivity in all the sectors of development to ensure maximum productivity,” Nyusi said at state banquet which was also graced by Mozambique’s former President  Joachim Chissanu.

President Chakwera arrived in Mozambique through Tete, on Thursday on a four day state visit for the ground breaking ceremony on the regional power interconnector between Malawi and Mozambique — followed by a visit to Nacala Port.