By Vincent Gunde
President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika has postponed Mid – Year Budget review of Parliament which was expected to commence on 9th November, 2026 at the Parliament Building in Lilongwe.
Professor Mutharika has done this to save the country’s money to go to equally important projects such procurement of fuel, medicines in hospitals, forex, and others.
However, Mutharika’s critics have said this has been done because Mutharika is outside the country receiving medical attention and he won’t be available to preside over the opening of Parliament as required by the law.
A concerned citizen of Malawi Mrs. Elizabeth Kaliza Banda of Area 51 in Lilongwe, has described the postponement of Parliament by Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika as a good move towards addressing the country’s challenges such as fuel, fertilizer, medicines in hospitals, forex describing this as the way to go.
Kaliza Banda said Professor Mutharika has sided with the people that are failing to find their ends meet each and every passing day and have no hope for a better tomorrow.
He said Members of Parliament are allegedly pocketing K6 million and ministers K8 million per month as salaries minus allowances for parliamentary committee meetings and the sitting of Parliament which is at K100,000 per day.
The citizen has claimed that Members of Parliament extended their term of office in the Chakwera – led MCP government by another one year making a total of 6 years in office, saying this has never happened before.
He said in all this extended term of office, Members of Parliament were receiving salaries per month out of the suffering Malawians who some of them were eating wild bushes (chitedze) and nyika as food for their survival.
The citizen has appealed to President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika that as he is preparing to retire from active politics, he should make sure that electoral calendar revert back as it was before so that elections be held in May.
Kaliza Banda said the changing of the electoral calendar to September was made out of greed to allow Members of Parliament themselves satisfying their needs and not the needs of the country and its citizens.
She said elections conducted in May made the incoming government prepare fully for the growing season to procure fertilizer in time and making sure that the fertilizers reaches all the selling points in time
“Mr. President, you have started postponing the Budget session of Parliament, revert the electoral calendar from September back to May as was since 1994,” said Kaliza Banda.
She has advised Professor Mutharika that reverting the electoral calendar back to May as was before will demand an opinion poll or referendum and not asking the same greedy politicians to debate amongst themselves claiming that leaving the matter to MPs will change nothing.
Kaliza Banda has finally appealed to President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika to reshuffle his cabinet and appoint only 6 ministers saying this will further save money for the country saying as of today billions and billions of Kwachas are going paying out ministers who are not solutions for the country.
