Minister of Information and Communications Technology, Nicholas Dausi has promised Malawian Journalists substantial rewards if they win in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) media awards.
Dausi made the pledge during the launch of 2018 SADC Media Awards at the Central Office of Information in Lilongwe.
The Minister challenged Malawian journalists to write competitive stories that focus on regional integration within SADC.
He also commended Malawian journalists for winning in various categories since the introduction of the awards in 2014 .
“So as we go into another season, I urge you to do your best so that we continue doing well. Come up with winning stories which emphasize on promoting regional integration,” said Dausi.
Journalists will compete in categories of print, radio, television and photo journalism. Winners in each category will take home US2500 Dollar (about K1.8 million) while runners up will take away a consolation cash prize of US1000 Dollars (about K735, 000).
Only stories published in 2017 are eligible for the 2018 awards.
SADC was founded in 1980 and Malawi is one of the founding members. Currently, the grouping has 16 members.
President Robert Mugabe kisses first lady Grace Mugabe during Zimbabwe’s 37th Independence Day celebrations in April.
Flamboyant Zimbabwe’s First Lady Grace Mugabe has warned of a possible coup plot amid growing tensions in the fight to succeed her husband comrade Robert Mugabe.
She says allies of Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa are threatening the lives of those who don’t support him to replace President Robert Mugabe, 93.
Mrs Mugabe herself and Mr Mnangagwa are the front-runners and their rivalry has split the governing Zanu-PF.
CSEC petitions SADC heads of state on quality education financing
JOHANNESBURG-(MaraviPost)-The education’ rights body, Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC) alongside with its partners petitioned Southern African Development Community’ (SADC) heads of state on the need to increase national budget towards education.
CSEC engagement SADC heads of state is part of the global campaign in which the organization alongside Africa Network Campaign for All (ANCEFA) and Action Aid International are advancing to African leaders’ commitment towards quality education enhancement.
LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)- The Malawi Government, through the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Natural Resources has set aside 4.5 million hectares to meet the Bonn Challenge and AFR100 targets in a bid to restore Malawi’s biodiversity.
The commitment comes amid the rude awakening of how vast deforestation has contributed to the country’s loss of biodiversity, soil fertility that has affected food production and security; theres also the increase in siltation resulting in low hydro power output, consequently affecting the energy industry.
Therefore, restoring degraded and deforested land in Malawi will help to achieve food security, improve quality water supply and addressing effects of climate change including floods, drought, hailstorms, among others.
The restoration process also means addressing the growing demand for charcoal and negative impacts of unsustainable charcoal production.
This is the reason Malawi this week hosted the first-ever Regional Southern Africa Bonn Challenge (SADC+), a high level ministerial conference in Lilongwe. The aim of the Conference, was to explore ways to step up efforts to restore depleted forests.
The conference was part of a global initiative agreed to recently in Bonn in German, and it seeks to restore 350 million hectares of forest cover worldwide by the year 2030.
The African region, which has been hard-hit by the effects of environmental plunder, is gunning to implement the initiative under the African Forest Landscape Restoration (AFR100).
The AFR 100 plan represents the continent’s pledge under the Bonn Challenge to plant 100 million hectares of forests cover in the next decade.
Setting the pace, Malawi took advantage of the meeting to launch two documents on National Forest Landscape Restoration Strategy (NFLRS), and the National Charcoal Strategy (NCS).
The forestry strategy outlines how recommendations from a Restoration Opportunity Assessment, can be applied taking into account the interdependency of various sectors, while the charcoal strategy seeks to address the country’s overdependence on charcoal as a source of domestic energy.
In an interview with The Maravi Post after closing of the two day-meeting on Friday, Minister of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining Bright Msaka disclosed that 4.5 million hectares set aside are the Malawi Government’s total commitment towards the Bonn Challenge targets.
Msaka observed that the Bonn Challenge is a global call for action, after seeing the deterioration in water quantity and quality, high levels of soil erosion, decreased soil fertility, ecological imbalance, loss of biodiversity, reduced harvests, hunger, and worsening poverty.
“Malawi has suffered the brunt of forest degradation and deforestation over the years, due to charcoal production and unsustainable farming practices, is under the challenge, committed to restore 4.5 million hectares of forest cover, an ambitious but achievable feat,” Msaka said.
“Therefore, the launch of the two documents, the NFLRS, and the NCS, confirms the country’s total commitment towards restoring the degraded natural resources to its original status. It’s my appeal therefore, to the citizens of this country, to support the implementation of the policies to achieve the ambitious plan,” urges Msaka.
The charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in Malawi, Andrew Herrup, described the launch of the two strategies as ground breaking in restoring loss of biodiversity.
Herrup said the two policy documents will boost Malawi’s efforts towards achieving the targets of the Bonn Challenge.
“The 97 percent of the population relies on charcoal and wood as sources of energy. Malawi therefore needs to push harder to provide greater access to electricity, in order to pull itself out of the quagmire.
“Implementation of the US$351 million Millennium Challenge Compact, Malawi will have a strengthened and expanded power sector, which in turn will provide citizens with the much-needed electricity for domestic and industrial use,” said Herrup.
In his remarks, the African Union’s (AU’s) Coordinator of the Great Green Wall Initiative, Dr. Elvis Paul Tangem, said drought and hunger have pushed levels of acute malnutrition to 37 percent in Kenya, while lack of water and vegetation is putting the lives of both people and animals at risk in Zimbabwe.
Tangem added that countries should consider redirecting their funding for chemical fertilizers to initiatives that can help promote development of sustainable natural fertilizer trees and plants.
Countries that have committed to AFR100 initiative (the regional Bonn Challenge Platform in Africa) include: Burundi, Benin, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Guinea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Tanzania and Uganda.
About 75.3 million hectares of land has been pledged in support of the AFR100 goal by 2020.
Prior to your inauguration we submitted our statement pleading with you that as you form a new government you must, as a matter of urgency, implement the Phumaphi Commission recommendations so as to stabilize the Kingdom into normalcy.
Congratulations for your coming back at the helm of the Government.
Dear Right Honorable Prime Minister Designate Thomas Thabane,
Congratulations for your come-back in the Government. It is rare and peculiar in our continental culture of politics when one can come from opposition and snatch a chance into the government.
You were once a prime minister who by divine intervention, was saved from the jaws of death in 2015.
Now you are coming back on the very position that could have made you lose life. God’s ways are not our ways. You will draw an objective lesson on this and perhaps, you will regard this election as your second term of office.
My appeal to you is, when you are elected on that position, you cease to be Thomas Thabane, you are now Father Lesotho, which means that your foes, rivals, enemies, and supporters, all together, become your employers; you, their servant.
There must never be witch-hunt, vengeance or revenge.
Your duty will now be the remaking of the Kingdom of Lesotho, as if it never existed before. You must lay new foundations that will bar the ills that nearly teared the mountainous Kingdom apart.
Whatever ideology or philosophy you may want to adopt, it can be Bolsheviks or Melsheviks, you can choose Rooseveltism or Franklinsim. You may think of reform or transformation; remember not to forget that the Kingdom of Lesotho is the United Kingdom of Basotho people.
Make sure politics must not divide the one people of the Kingdom. Some quarters have been suggesting and proposing the awkward notion of disbanding the Lesotho Defence Force in favour of a strong and solid police force; do not make a mistake of dissolving or disbanding the military arm of the Kingdom. Your ultimate duty is to transform the military into a professional army that leaves the barracks only when territorial integrity is at risk or attacked.
Soldiers must be confined in their garrison, barracks and battalions, not in the streets of Maseru, Leribe, ButhaButhe, Maputsoe, Thabatseka or Mohales Hoek to duplicate the duty of national police.
Soldiers must be trained to refrain from being doublers of politics, and national security.
In other words, this is the moment when the SADC recommendations, under the Phumaphi Commission, must be implemented. You must see to it that the recommendations are not just being implemented on paper, but are practically being implemented on the ground.
The setting up of the Truth and Reconciliation Bureau, will be a benchmark for rebuilding the trust that has been lost among citizens, and neighbouring states in the region. All atrocities committed by whoever, including the assassination of Brigadier Maparankoe Mahau, and the detention-without-trial of all suspected mutineers, must come into the open, to pave for genuine reconciliation. In this way, your Government will not waste time sitting with ad hoc secret meetings for revenge and vengeance.
The time has come for every Mosotho to be secure in the Kingdom of their Fatherland. No Mosotho must be insecure to think of fleeing their Kingdom out of fear and threats. You have come into the Government at a time as this, to restore order, build sanity, instal discipline, and instil confidence in every sector.
Those found to be perpetrators of the atrocities, must be given a fair trial, and be given room to be heard. Any sentence, must be fair and justice-based.
In doing this, you will be laying a beacon of the new foundation for the better of the Kingdom.
Never again should soldiers be involved in politics. The Lesotho Defence Force and Lesotho Mounted Police must be reformed, and transformed to know and realize they are there to serve the Government of the day, in disregard to their political affiliations.
Prime Minister Designate, we may be resistant of reform of the military and other sectors of Government, but without forensic investigations as to why the Kingdom is in this mess, will be doing your Government a great injustice. For you to call for an orderly return of the soldiers into their respective barracks, for you to call for an effective police service, you must diagnose the root cause of the problem.
Not only in Lesotho, Africa is embroiled into deadly corruption that is why many people have lost lives, Governments separate with their constituents, soldiers on the streets, police involved in corruption, and soldiers willing to use short-cuts into the State House.
All these can only be stabilized if you stop corruption in the society of the Basotho people.
Last words
Prime Minister Designate, develop a sober, workaholic nature among civil servants, and make sure every Loti is accounted for. Be transparent and strengthen civil society institutions.
Do not individuate the running of the Government strictly in your hands. Be corrective and act collectively. A general consensus is what has build the USA into a superpower, made North Korea a thorn to the global “World Order”. It is this very collective decision-making that has made poor China then to be the blossoming 21st century largest economy on earth.
The Kingdom of Lesotho has vast natural resources, apart from exporting water. With collective innovative ideas, you can become the Brunei of Africa.
This demands strong and robust institutions, with a Government that has a visionary Prime Minister to overturn an economy right side up.
As you form a new Government, the only and remaining Pan-African institution the Forum for the Future of Africa (FFFA) decided to write this Open Letter to you, so that the dignity and integrity of the Kingdom of Lesotho is restored, and rebuilt.
Congratulations once again!
Saunders Jumah the Utopian ?Forum for the Future of Africa (FFFA)
The past we inherited the future is ours to make.
The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the Publisher or the Editor.
The rules of 1971 by U.N., cannot be the benchmark to be the tool of finding a lasting solution about the ownership of the dispute currently under mediation by SADC expendables in the name of Joaquim Chissano, Festus Mogae and the list.
Lesotho is holding three elections in five years, because of the stupid route that SADC undertakes of negotiating.
Morgan Tsvangirai was robbed of his victory in Zimbabwe after winning outright in the 2008 elections, and this group of expendables backed the loser in Robert Mugabe.
SADC is a bunch of comrades that serve each others’ personal and individual interests. There is no way Mozambique’s Chissano will honestly mediate between Malawi and Tanzania, when we are believed to be the country that corroborated with Apartheid South Africa to gun down his successor Samora Machel.
Thabo Mbeki cannot be the neutral mediator, when he know that he lived longer in exile because our persistent labour relationship with Apartheid government delayed his quest for freedom, and denied his political father Oliver Tambo, the presidency of a free South Africa.
SADC is a club of comrades not for the truth and future of the region. We are failing to adopt a blueprint of one passport and free movement of citizens in the region that is always shifted from 2008 to 2014, from 2016 to 2018, and now 2020.
The issue of Lake Malawi can better be solved at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) using the 1894 article of demarcation and borders.
You don’t give children to solve land disputes without records of the past.
The DPP and Peter Mutharika must not politicize this matter. This is not a political matter, it is a national issue that must involve all Malawians from all political divides.
We need a general consensus to solve this matter, the only solution we need is a resolve by taking this matter to the ICJ.
Botswana and Namibia nearly went to war because of Sedudu and Kasikili Islands along Chobe River in the northern part of the two countries. Guns, tanks and jet fighters closed in almost for a battle , but the matter was solved at the ICJ. Why are we wasting time and resources for negotiating?
On the dispute of Lake Malawi, there is no second thought or negotiations. In Malawi the Lake is called Lake Malawi; in Tanzania it is called Lake Nyasa.
Malawi was christened Malawi at independence from Nyasalabd, where does Tanzania get the stamina and the guts to claim something they know does not belong to them?
Our political shineniganism of selfishness by stealing state funds to pocket into our personal accounts, failing to keep the money and acquire modern equipment for defense, are the consequences that in our own bedroom, enemies come to invade us because of greed.
What type of a country is it that does not own modern equipment in jet fighters, B52 tanks, naval ships? We are living in an ancient life of relying on Russian Kalachinkov type of guns of the past.
We have been ruined by multiparty democracy, we have just become as docile as a donkey, without the muscles to stand up and deny nonsense.
This is why we need young minds to takeover Malawi, so that we must start to lay new foundations for our future security. Otherwise, with the current crop of leadership, our sovereignty is at stake.
Malawi is worse within, and her borders are threatened too, because of gerontocratic politics that we practise of putting in power men and women who stopped being active in bed long time ago. Our nation will not move forward if gerontocracy is left to live in the stone age.
Lake Malawi is for Malawi period! If we are to go into war for it, let us all stand up and fight for our heritage. Kamuzu Banda never allowed this nonsense, we cannot accept the nonsense. This is worth fighting for.
WINDHOEK-(MaraviPost)- Malawi as a sitting chairperson for Southern Africa Development Committee (SADC)’s Parliamentary Women Caucus, is pushing for legislation of SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC FP), in a bid to effortlessly legitimize development policies in members’ states.
The proposal will give SADC FP mandate through various committees, to follow resolutions, coupled with implement plans amongst member states.
With this agenda, SADC as a regional body, will be required to carry the task of indorsing the proposal for effective implementation of development policies.
In an exclusive interview with The Maravi Post upon arrival from SADC PF Executive meeting that was held in Windhoek, Nambia over the weekend, Jessie Kabwira, SADC’s Parliamentary Women Caucus Chairperson, observed that it was difficult for member states in the grouping to implement various resolutions without a legitimate body.
Kabwira, who is also Malawi’s lawmaker for Salima North-West, said the passing of the historic motion on SADC PF model law on ending child marriage, was experiencing hitches for its implementation, as the body is not legitimized by SADC.
SADC’s Parliamentary Women Caucus Chair, therefore made an appeal to all members’ states to support the proposal ahead of the first-ever SADC Women Parliament, slated for July 6-7, 2017 in Seychelles.
“Soon after I was elected as SADC’s Parliamentary Women Caucus Chairperson, SADC PF moved a historic motion on model law on ending child marriage, which is the first in the world. But we have failed to execute it in member states, as SADC FP is not legislated.
“With the current status, SADC FP remains toothless in all resolutions we have been making. We need the regional body, SADC to legitimize the PF, that it has powers of following up various policy implementation, hence the call for the support in member states on this proposal,” urges Kabwira.
Currently, Malawi is heading SADC Parliament Women Caucus and Gender, but previously chaired the entire SADC PF successfully.
EZULWINI-(MaraviPost): – The 15-member state Southern African Development Community (SADC), is on a stock-taking exercise of its existence with calls for youth economic empowerment and integration in all sectors of development.
The SADC’ extraordinary summit currently underway in Ezulwin, Kingdom of Swaziland, focuses on what the regional body has achieved and what it has failed since its inception in 1980.
