By Lusekero Mhango
KARONGA-(MaraviPost)-Former president of the republic of Malawi who is also the president of People’s Party (PP) Dr Joyce Banda has bemoaned the continued power outages in the country.
Banda said the situation is contributing to the rampant wanting cutting down of trees.
JB made the remarks on Wednesday during a political rally that PP held at freedom park in Karonga.
According to the former state president, the current situation where there is frequent power outages is having a negative impact on the country’s development.
She observed that continued blackouts is hindering local and foreign investments from opening up businesses in the country.
“Power is a driving force to a country’s development and its sad to see the current situation where households are going hours and hours without electricity.
” During my time in power blackouts were a thing of the past and business’s were thriving but since I left the office we appear to have returned to the old problem”, bemoaned Banda.
The citizenry continues spending long hours without power thereby grounding businesses to a halt.
“The consequences of frequent blackouts we’re experiencing them now through deforestation, the demand for charcoal has become high hence places like from Salima to Nkhata Bay were seeing a lot of deforestation for example,” she said.
Turning to agriculture the former president has vowed to abolish the current farm input subsidy program in favour of a universal subsidy program.
JB added that the current one isn’t benefiting masses as random people are chosen to benefit from the program.
In his remarks PP vice president Ralph Mhone has urged people in the country to have belief with the peoples party.
Mhone said the PP is the only party that lived up to it’s promise hence it deserved another shot to rule the country.
During the rally the former ruling party welcomed over 50 members to the party who have defected from Malawi Congress party (MCP) and the ruling Democratic progressive party (DPP) among others it includes former shadow Member of Parliament (MP) for DPP for Karonga central brigadier Smith.
Useless woman. Do you think we have forgotten?