State House would like to put on record the facts and truth of the convoy of the Head of State against the misinformed editorial in The Daily Times of Friday, 27 January 2016.

This editorial is craftily tailored to blindfold the public into believing that “the number of vehicles on the President’s motorcade” is so long that Government’s austerity measures are not working.

Contrary to the calculated absence of truth in the editorial, Malawians deserve to know the facts of the convoy of their Head of State.

Strictly speaking, the President’s convoy cannot be described as “20 plus” by any media institution that cares about truth.

The President’s current convoy is often 12 vehicles.

The standard convoy constitutes the President’s vehicle and its backup vehicle.

There has to be a mobile clinic with medical equipment and nurses, a doctor’s vehicle, one vehicle for mechanics and the rest are security vehicles.

However, the yellow journalism of Times tried to magnify this modest dozen-car convoy for an entire Head of State into hyperbolic imaginations simply to create hate in the hearts of loving Malawians.

We kindly advise that Malawians are not interested in the campaign of hate and lies which Times is waging for its political masters and mistresses.

A media house of its professional integrity should have cared to know that the President’s convoy is not a new fleet.

Three quarters of the vehicles were bought in the Bingu wa Mutharika times and were used by former President Joyce Banda as well.

In fact, one of the vehicles, the Land Rover platform, comes all the way from Kamuzu Banda’s motorcade.

But we understand that the yellow press at Times is only interested in creating anti-Government negative opinion more than facts and truth.

It also beats reason and logic how Times is calculating “minister’s and other officials’ vehicles” into the President’s convoy.

Malawians fully well understand that ministers’ and other officials’ vehicles that often travel in advance of the convoy cannot be suggested to be part of “the President’s motorcade”.

In any case, Times should wake up from its ignorance and realize that there shall never be a time when a Head of State can attend a national function alone.

Times is also jumping into empty propaganda by claiming that Cabinet Ministers have three vehicles when every Malawian knows that each Minister has one Toyota Prado in the current Government.

More than any other Government, our Cabinet Ministers have patriotically made personal sacrifices and walked the talk of austerity measures in the process of healing our economy.

We wish Times had the professional integrity of verifying the veracity of its editorial content.

Of course, everybody understands that what Times is doing is more of politics than journalism.

We also understand that the agenda and ulterior motive of Times is to create a perception that President Mutharika’s Government is more extravagant and corrupt than any other government as a political strategy for building a holier image of their political masters and mistresses.

We do appreciate that the Managing Director of Times is nursing presidential ambitions.

We also understand that
Times Group is sinking with debts to the point of failing to remit taxes and pensions of its employees.

What nobody accepts is that the managers and editors of the technically bankrupt Times must blame its problems on Government.

The whole corporate world in this country knows that Times is walking in the feet of two companies that collapsed under the same management that is failing Times Group today.

Let us separate business failures from media professionalism and politics.

In the final analysis, we believe Malawians deserve truth and that the political media strategy being pursued by Times must never be peddled by feeding the public with fabrications.

If Times wants to continue playing politics more than practicing journalism, let it be politics based on truth.

Indeed, we want to thank all Malawians who appreciate that President Peter Mutharika has gone out of his way to run this country on austerity measures in recovering the country from the shocking economic wreckage of Cashgate.

Whereas Times is trying to blow out the dozen-car convoy, most sober-minded Malawians look at the bigger picture.

We appreciate that unlike his predecessors, the President has for two good years avoided aeroplanes and helicopters in travelling across the country.

These are part of Mutharika’s austerity measures to save the ailing
economy.

Most Malawians appreciate that Government’s austerity measures have worked in surviving the economy from a K536 billion deficit inherited in 2014, and through two years of natural disasters without donor budgetary support.

There has never been a Government driven by austerity measures more than that of President Peter Mutharika.