Malawi: President Chakwera Defies Own Order And Travels To DRC

By Joseph Dumbula

Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera has been in the news in recent days for defying his own international travel ban by heading to the Democratic Republic of Congo at the just ended weekend.

Chakwera had in November last year, the President said he had cancelled all international trips until March this year, starting with the trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the Conference of Parties (CoP28) in that month.

The series of measures aimed at addressing Malawi’s economic distress, including a ban on all public-funded international trips for himself, Cabinet ministers and other senior government officials.

The measures came on the back of an International Monetary Fund executive board approval of $175 million Extended Credit Facility for Malawi to help stabilize the economy.

But, ironically, the 66-year-old went to the DRC where President Felix Tshisekedi was inaugurated and attended to ‘urgent in-person talks’ according to a foreign affairs statement.

Minister of Information Moses Kunkuyu was also not short of running full defense for the tip.

‘’President Chakwera has had to temporarily suspend his programme of public engagements in the Southern Region to undertake this unscheduled trip to Kinshasa, at the behest of His Excellency Tshisekedi Tshilombo, who has invited President Chakwera to hold urgent in-person talks with him on regional security matters that affect Malawi Defence Force troops currently deployed in peacekeeping activities in eastern DRC,” he said.

The trip drew mixed reactions online with people criticizing the move.

A vocal grouping, the Human Rights Defenders Coalition through its Chairperson Gift Trapence has also accused the President of not being serious about the austerity measures he announced.

Trapence said the measures were supposed to redirect the country’s economy and wondered whether Chakwera has real justification for the trip.