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MALAWI NEWS ONLINE/MALAWI NEWS ONLINE/MALAWI NEWS ONLINE
A fortnightly update of news from Malawi
Edition # 30 2 June 1997
MALAWI NEWS ONLINE is written by Malawian journalists in Malawi and brings you the news from their point of view. It is assembled and edited in Denmark by South Africa Contact, the former anti-apartheid movement, publishers of i'Afrika, a quarterly magazine on Southern Africa.
The fortnightly news updates from Malawi are provided by our established network of journalists in Southern Africa. ZAMBIA NEWS ONLINE and TANZANIA NEWS ONLINE are our latest newsletters and they will be followed, in the not too distant future, by individual news updates covering other Southern African countries,.
MALAWI NEWS ONLINE is brought to you by a co-operation between South Africa Contact and Inform, the leading alternative information network in Denmark.
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In this edition:
1. Celebrations council abolished
2. Police arrest hard-core criminals
3. Donors pledge K14 million to Malawi
4. Man feasts on hyena
5. 17 Zimbabwian firms exhibit wares in Malawi
6. Mandrax haul at Lilongwe International Airport
7. Army getting set for women
8. Malawi's poor telecoms legacy slammed
9. Woman in labour murdered by thugs
10. Mob justice spreads to villages
1. Celebrations council abolished
Mounting pressure from the donor community has forced the government to abolish some parastatal offices deemed to be useless. The first casualty is the National Celebrations Council which ceased to exist April 30.
Minister of State, Joseph Kubwalo, said as a result of the government's decision to scrap the council all but five members of staff have been retired or laid off. Kubwalo said 17 members of staff have already been given their benefits on termination.
The government announced last year that celebrations marking the country's independence, for which the government was spending K3.5 million, would now be held once every five years.
2. Police arrest hard-core criminals
Police in the former capital, Zomba, have arrested five hard core criminals suspected to be behind a series of armed robberies and the death of at least one resident in the district. Police spokesman Willie Chinagru said the police had also recovered several rounds of ammunitions.
Chingaru said the criminals were arrested at various places after a vigorous campaign. He said the suspects are believed to those who attacked and murdered William Mashoni at his house in the district.
3. Donors pledge K14 million to Malawi
Donors have pledged K13.5 billion (U$900 million) in external funding for the next three years to Malawi, but in return, the donors also demanded less control by the government on the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation.
The World Bank and the finance ministry said in separate statements dispatched from the Consultative Group meeting in Paris, that the donors pledged US$319 million in aid for 1997, and about US$581 million for the next three years. The World Bank said in the statement that indicative announcements made at the meeting are expected to fully meet Malawi's external financing needs.
The ministry, for its part, said that the donors hailed Malawi for using dialogue to persuade the opposition to return to parliament, saying it showed government's continued commitment to democracy and co-operation among political parties.
The donors did, however, ask the government to free the MBC from state control and allow private sector players in broadcasting, and to extend its privatisation programme to infrastructure, telecommunications and power generation. The delegates asked the government to provide legislative and financial frameworks for making MBC an independent public corporation, while opening up broadcasting to new entrants.
The donors included the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, European Union, United Nations organisations, the African Development Bank, Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, the USA, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Canada and Holland.
4. Man feasts on hyena
A Machinga resident in south Malawi, whose appetite 'borders on the insane' according to his neighbours, recently shocked his district when he took a dead hyena to his house and skinned it for meat.
The government owned Malawi News Agency said on May 17 that the man, popularly known as Ngozo, assisted by a friend hurriedly took the carcass of the hyena which had been killed by a vehicle, rushing it to his house where he later held a feast on its meat.
The man, said to be a kachasu (illicit and locally brewn gin) addict, became the talk of the people in the district centre as they could not believe that his wild and strange appetite could drive him to the extent of eating hyena's meat.
After his neighbours reported recently that the man nearly lost his life after eating a deadly poisonous snake, people could only conclude that he needed mental treatment.
5. 17 Zimbabwian firms exhibit wares in Malawi
Some 17 Zimbabwean firms are participating in an exhibition organised by ZimTrade in Malawi's biggest commercial city , Blantyre.
The exhibition, which is marketing a cross-section of products and services by Zimbabwean firms ranges from textile, furniture, footwear, to meat and meat products has, however, overshadowed preparations for Malawi's 9th International Trade Fair which starts on June 5 in Blantyre.
But ZimTrade market advisor Tichawona Shumba defended his country for holding the exhibition ahead of Malawi's international trade fair , saying such functions had now became a tradition for Zimtrade in any country that was holding an international trade fair. He said that it gave an opportunity for some Zimbabwean manufacturers who are unable to participate in international fairs to exhibit their wares.
ZimTrade Market advisor, Vuyiswa Mafu , expressed concern that Zimbabwean products were being sold on a door to door basis and by street vendors at exorbitant prices which was giving Malawians an incorrect picture of Zimbabwean products. The Malawi government has complianed for some time about the lopsided business between Malawi and Zimbabwe in favour of the latter.
6. Mandrax haul at Lilongwe International Airport
Airport police in the capital Lilongwe have impounded 184.5 kilogrammes of mandrax which is believed to have been imported from Dubai in Saudi Arabia. The police said in a statement that the dangerous drug, the street value of which they were unable to estimate, was sent to a fictitious address in Malawi.
An airport police official, Eric Thulambo, said an unidentified man on May 15 went to collect the parcel from the warehouse of Union Transport, but upon being told that it contained the potent drug, the man disclaimed it and vanished.
Thulambo did not say how the authorities allowed him to slip away.
7. Army getting set for women
The Malawi army is preparing the legal infrastructure to enable it to enlist women into its service.
Defence ministry press officer , Colonel Mathews Zongoro, said a draft bill for the incorporation of women into the army has already been prepared and was now awaiting parliament to pass it into law. Zongoro said those women who could not wait for parliament were meanwhile free to join other professional departments within the army . Recruitment, he said, would begin this month. Vice President and Defence Minister, Justin Malewezi, announced last year that government intended to incorporate women in the Malawi army, a move that was welcomed by human rights and women's organisations.
8. Malawi's poor telecoms legacy slammed
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Harvard University scholar and head of the Harvard Institute for International Development has slammed the country's poor telecommunications policy which does not allow the private sector to invest in it.
Sachs, who is in the country on a mission to help transform the small and shrinking economies of Sub-Saharan Africa into free market driven economies, said Malawi had a natural disadvantage with her lack of seaports. But he said the country had no excuse for its poor telecommunications network.
"More than 100 telecom companies are interested in investing in Malawi, including British Telecom and AT&T, but the policy is all wrong" he said. "Six months from now, it will have to change, because the rest of the country can't be held hostage to such politics," he said.
9. Woman in labour murdered by thugs
On May 26, five thugs in Dowa, central Malawi, murdered an expectant woman who was in labour and removed the baby from her uterus before fleeing.
Police said the woman, identified as Iris Katsinkha, was abducted on her way to a maternity clinic at Mvera Mission after she had started experiencing labour pains. She was being escorted by a relative, Selina Chikwetu.
On their way to the hospital, the five men approached Katsinkha and Chikwetu and offered to give them a lift to the hospital, but before they reached their destination, the men attacked the expectant woman.
Chikwetu fled to a nearby village where she informed people about the incident. When she and the villagers returned to the scene, they found, to their horror, that Katsinkha had been murdered, disembowelled and the foetus removed.
Police in Lilongwe said they had not yet arrested anyone in connection with the incident and were still investigating. It is believed that the murderers find use for body parts in various rituals.
10. Mob justice spreads to villages
Mob justice is spreading at an alarming rate to all parts of the country despite frequent pleas from the police. "Mob justice is a great offence yet it is spreading to all parts of the country including rural areas," said assistant Police Public Relations Officer, Felix Nkhalamba.
Nkhalamba said police were trying their best to make people understand that this was not the way to achieve justice. He said so far the majority of those who had fallen victim to mob justice were suspected thieves, adding that Dedza district in central Malawi topped the list on cases of mob justice in the rural areas.
President Muluzi earlier this year attributed increasing incidents of mob justice to police failure to arrive quickly at crime scenes. Muluzi said although the government did not condone mob justice, the police and the courts should realise that it is often an expression of frustration by the public.
James Banda, a committee member of Ndirande Neighbourhood Watch, one of several community policing groups formed by the residents in Blantyre blamed much of the mob justice on police failure to curb crimes. "When a crime is reported, the police always take too long before coming to the scene of the crime. As a result, people resort to applying justice on their own," he said. ************************ From: AfricaNN@inform-bbs.dk (Africa_news Network) Date: Mon, 09 Jun 1997 15:45:54 +0200 Subject: MALAWI NEWS ONLINE #30 Message-ID: <1262329710.32430731@inform-bbs.dk>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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