Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has dismissed President Lazarus Chakwera’s new year address as senseless and empty.
DPP spokesperson Shadric Namalomba made the remarks in a statement released on Tuesday.
“The nation expected the speech to usher in the dawn of a new era but nothing came out of President’s remarks”. Said the DPP spokesperson.
Chakwera was not scheduled to make any statement on New Year’s Day and his address only came hours after queries and criticism on social media on why the President was not addressing the nation as has always been the tradition.
“The nation had the belief that the speech would usher in the dawn of a new era – the era of economic progression, the era of rooting out corruption that has permeated the membrane of even the state house, the era of cleaning the mess in public service delivery, the era of removing deadwood in the cabinet, the era of infrastructure development”, Said Namalomba whose party was removed from government after a year of public protests and a court battle that reversed the 2019 elections which the DPP candidate former President Peter Mutharika was declared winner
“The continued litany of rhetoric of promises was all the nation got.” Says Namalomba in the statement released to the media adding, “In simple terms, the speech was, as usual, empty and a total reflection of the disregard of the suffering that Malawians are enduring due to governance failure by the incumbent regime”
The former ruling party said they expected the president to announce a reduced cabinet to 20 as a measure of managing the collapsing economy.
Government spokesperson Gospel Kazako has played down the criticism saying the DPP needs to providelacks positive criticism to government.
He said during a state sponsored media conference that government was working on finding solutions to problems the country is facing.
