Former Silver Strikers star Thuso Paipi has died today morning.
His uncle, Thango Paipi, has just confirmed the sad news saying the footballer has died after short illness at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre.
Thuso Paipi
“We have lost Thuso an hour ago at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital,” he said, adding:”Thuso was admitted to the hospital two days ago and I was with him hoping for the good news but that has not been the case.”
Thuso Paipi became popular in 2017-2020 Super League season.
A Malawi Congress Party (MCP) diehard for Mvera area in Dowa district Rodgers Kamphangala, has accused opposition parties Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), United Democratic Front (UDF) and Alliance for Democracy(AFORD) of failing to support activists in holding peaceful street protests pushing the Tonse Alliance-led government to address critical issues that have rocked the country.
Kamphangala observes that opposition parties and their in Parliament Kondwani Nankhumwa are silent only enjoying huge allowances of K100,000 per day after attending Parliamentary sessions of Parliament.
He said President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera seems to know nothing that Malawians are in pain and suffering claiming that he is failing to address the nation on the situation the country is sailing through making the citizens to lose trust that they have a leader.
The MCP diehard says he has noted with a great concern that all planned protests against President Chakwera and his Tonse administration besides being cleared by the court of law, have been ending up in tears with the Malawi Police officers firing teargas at the protesters.
He said as evidenced by the way the Police are providing security to the demonstrators, there is a clear indication that the police are siding with evil during demonstrations claiming that MCP militias broke the Lilongwe bridge armed with pangas, catapults and big stones.
Kamphangala is of view that police had all the powers to clear the roads observing that the MCP militias did not go to court to obtain an order to stop demonstrations but instead siding with them and were the last to leave after the activists fled for their lives.
He said activists have been left alone to be holding demonstrations while the opposition parties are strategizing to use the same people that are demonstrating on the streets to support them for votes to win the 2025 elections.
The activist has reminded the MCP that without sponsoring the HRDC they would not have ousted Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika out of government wondering why today they are finding demonstrations a threat to their camp.
“MCP and President Chakwera entered into government through demonstrations, allow demonstrators to present their petition to President Chakwera for democracy to prevail in Malawi,”says Kamphangala.
Kamphangala has also accused MCP militias who were threatening activists saying:‘’Ma demo azikapanga kwawo ku Thyolo kwa Alhomwe. “ He says this type of language is tribalism at its best and should not be accepted in modern democracy.
The Local Authority Performance Assessment (LAPA) has rated Dowa District Council one of the best performing councils in Malawi in areas of development planning, procurement, financial management and accounting, health service delivery, among others.
As one of the best, Dowa District Council will be one of the councils to access development grants from the World Bank funded -Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD) to implement various projects to benefit the poor in the district.
Out of 28 District Councils in Malawi, 3 councils have failed to access GESD funds because they failed the minimum access conditions due to underperformance, poor performance, misuse of project funds and many other reasons.
Mercy Mpakule
Speaking during a District Executive Committee (DEC) meeting held at the Dowa boma, the Council’s Director of Planning and Development Mercy Mpakule, thanked organizations implementing their various interventions in the district and government sector heads for contributing to the success of the council as one of the best performing in Malawi.
Mpakule said a number of councils did well, Dowa got an overall score of 72 percent in areas of access to information, audit and audit issues, financial and physical progress reporting, financial management and accounting, Health service delivery and procurement.
She said the council performed poorly in the Education and service delivery scoring 20 percent calling on partners and education stakeholders to work together for one unity of purpose to support the education sector to do well.
The DPD said the major issues arising from LAPA were Development Service Committee meetings not prioritizing investment projects for approval by the Full Council, schools not supervised and inspected regularly and teachers not equitably deployed across the district.
She said as putting a way forward, the council has already commenced self-assessments for the assessed sectors and is remaining with 3 sectors (Agriculture, Works and Education) saying the council is targeting to score above 90 percent as the next assessment is to start from 18th September, 2023.
“Very few councils performed well in access to information with Dowa getting a sore of 67 percent, we are also not vigilant in revenue collections,” said Mpakule.
Mpakule said most Local Authorities failed to adequately hold site progress meetings, issuance of certificates not completely done, failed to collect the locally generated revenues as per budget, failed to resolve audit issues and not all the SIG funds were disbursed timely by the Local Authorities.
Goverment through Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM), has launched the national research agenda II as well as research methodology with a call to stakeholders within the health sector on the operationalisation of the agenda in order to make sure that there is security in the health system.
Halimah Daud, deputy minister of health made the remarks when she officially launched the strategy which run from 2022 to 2030.
She said this is a great moment as the strategy will increase our health system and that the committiment of all relevant stakeholders is essential to our health.
Speaking in an interview on behalf of the minister, Principal Secretary in the ministry of health responsible for administration, Beston Kasamile said the strategy will give an opportunity for stakeholders in health system to have directions on how they will be conducting health related research, as the strategy have looked into people’s priorities and implementation plan, it just shows that as a country we have taken a postive direction.
“We have been conducting various health researches but now we want to do it in a more focused manner and that is why the task team that did the work hard the representation from the academia, civil society organization and at the launch today we had the representation from the District Councils, so this is more focused and more inclusive,” he said.
He also said that as everything needs money it is very impressive that the strategy will be using 2% of the total health national budget.
On his part, representative of Civil Society Organizations(CSOs), Maziko Matemba commended PHIM for coming up with the national research agenda as it will be guiding them in providing feedback as to the ministry and they will make sure that the agenda is implementable by all partners.
“We as CSOs cannot do advocancy without research, so we hope that this agenda will improve data correction, data sharing within the ministry to media as well as to our CSOs so that when we try to inform policy as well as accountability it has to be based on research and based on evidence which has been generated through this agenda,” Matemba said.
The agenda will guide on researchers, policy makers, program implementers, academic institutions, health development partners and other stakeholders on health research priorities for Malawi.
President Lazarus Chakwera has once again said the developmental projects he and his administration is implementing are not meant for political milestone but as what is necessary for Malawians in prospering together as one nation.
Chakwera said this in Nkhata-Bay on Thursday, 7th September 2023 when he officially inaugurated the Nkhata-Bay Town Water Supply and Sanitation Project which is to provide clean water for Nkhata-Bay town and surrounding areas.
Highlighting on the first and third pillars of SUPER HI5 agenda that he promised to use as governance framework for his administration of Servant leadership and Prospering together, Chakwera said it is the commitment of his government to mobilize and use public resources to improve service delivery including clean water to Malawians.
President Chakwera
“Not did I only know that the situation with our water services was bad from personal experience growing up in rural areas, but I also knew the severerity of it from annual reports that come out from various sources regarding our country’s water situation, including the warning by the United Nations” Said President Chakwera.
Chakwera told the nation that the timely completion of the project and saving of other resources from it signifies both servant leadership and eagerness to prosper together as one nation.
Chakwera then commended the contractor and engineers of the Project for completing it before its estimated period, saving some resources in the process which Chakwera said will assist over 25,000 citizens of the district.
In his speech, Symon Vuwa Kaunda, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Member of Parliament for Nkhata-Bay Central thanked President Chakwera for the project, saying it is good to appreciate what President Chakwera’ leadership is doing in developing Malawi, urging Malawians to learn giving appreciation for good things others do.
“I want to thank you the President in public for your developmental positive mind that has seen projects such as fixing electricity problem, addressing hunger situation, including this water project being possible.
Who will be good if you are not the best? Bwana ubwino ndi umene mwapanga inuwu. ‘Asani ukhumba kanthu kamampha kwamnyako, udankhi ndiwe” Said Kaunda speaking in Tonga to emphasize his appreciation.
Speaking earlier, Senior Chief Mkumbira applauded President Chakwera for the distribution of maize in Nkhata-Bay district and for the water project that has been commissioned on Thursday.
Mkumbira has since urged his fellow chiefs to encourage their subjects in taking care of the newly commissioned project.
The project is expected to benefit close to 150,000 people in Nkhata-Bay district and has been funded by African Development Bank, OPEC Fund for International Development and Malawi Government to the tune of K31 billion.
