MALAWI: New Vice President & more – 25th Jun 2024

Muli bwanji from BA! This is the Rorshok Malawi Update from the 25th of June twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Malawi.

The country’s new Vice President is Michael Bizwick Usi. The government announced his appointment on Thursday the 20th, but Usi was officially sworn in on Friday the 21st at the Parliament Building in Lilongwe.

Usi is not new to politics. Before, he served as the Minister of Climate Change, and as the Vice President of the United Transformation Movement party, founded by Saulos Chilima, the late Vice President, who died in a plane crash early this month.

Speaking of the accident, Moses Kunkuyu, the Minister of Information and Digitalization, told local media that the government of Germany agreed to help Malawi investigate the plane crash that claimed the lives of Chilima and nine others.

On Monday the 24th, Kunkuyu said three German experts had arrived and begun collecting information from the Malawi Defense Force and the Civil Aviation Authority, before visiting the site of the crash. Their team had one expert from the company that made the aircraft that crashed, and two from the German Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation.

Unfortunately, Kunkuyu did not say how long their investigations would take.

A new person will be overlooking the twenty twenty-five presidential elections.

President Chakwera appointed Annabel Mtalimanja, a High Court Judge, as the new Chairperson for the Malawi Electoral Commission (or MEC) on Saturday the 20th in Lilongwe. However, a statement by MEC said her appointment became effective on the 7th of June because the contract of the outgoing Chairperson, Justice Chifundo Kachale, expired on the 6th of June.

There has also been a change of management at the Lilongwe City Council. On Tuesday the 25th, Esther Sagawa, the Councillor for the Malawi Congress Party, was elected as the new Mayor of Lilongwe City. She has replaced Richard Banda, whose two-and-a-half-year contract ended.

Meanwhile, Mzuzu City is getting ready to elect a new Mayor too.

McDonald Gondwe, the Spokesperson for the Mzuzu City Council, said the Council is currently accepting nominations for a new mayor and deputy mayor. They will hold the polls for the elections on Wednesday the 26th at 9 AM in the Council’s chambers.

Usually, government positions change as the presidential elections get closer. Remember that Malawi will be voting next year.

In trending news, Bon Kalindo, a political activist, was arrested on Thursday, the 20th, on cybercrime charges. He allegedly spread voice notes with criminal content on social media.

Kamlepo Kalua, the Member of Parliament for Rumphi East, was arrested on Friday the 21st on similar charges.

It is unclear if the police think the two were working together on the alleged crime, or if it is just a coincidence that they were both charged with the same offense around the same time. Also, there’s not much info about the voice notes the two were arrested for, as they didn’t really make local news or social media trends.

Moving on, Humble Bondo, a student at the University of Malawi (or UNIMA), was suspended from the school for three years on charges of sexual harassment. A statement from UNIMA released last Tuesday the 18th said that Bondo appeared before the university’s Students’ Disciplinary Committee on Wednesday the 12th, and they found him guilty.

It turns out that Bondo is the former President of the Students’ Union. He was in his final year, but was accused of touching a female student’s breast. Circumstances surrounding the incident are unknown as UNIMA students are keeping the news a secret. They don’t want to talk because the president was or is their friend or someone they know. So, there’s a sort of a personal allegiance to Bondo However, users took to social media to express disappointment at the ex-president’s behavior.

There was a similar story at the Kamuzu Academy in Kasungu. A local investigative news site said that five individuals accused Andrew Hubbard, the school’s Deputy Headteacher, of forcing them to perform sexual acts with him. He promised promotions to two junior staff members and money to three students from a neighboring school.

The news said they didn’t have any direct evidence that connected Hubbard to any of the victims, and authorities from Kamuzu Academy kept denying the rumors. However, another local paper reported that Hubbard was fired from the Academy. He was even spotted leaving the country a few days after the rumors started circulating.

Up next, The President has allowed the amendment of the Electricity Act to allow stiffer punishments and penalties for those who break the law. For instance, the Electricity Supply Corporation (or ESCOM) will fine individuals 100 million Kwacha or fifty-seven thousand dollars, if they tamper with electricity meters or get electricity illegally connected to their house. If they don’t pay the fine, they will be sentenced to twenty years in prison. Before, the penalty was five million Kwacha or nearly three thousand dollars or ten years imprisonment.

If you vandalize ESCOM equipment, you will be sentenced to thirty years in prison, and you won’t have the option of paying a fine. Prior to this, you had to pay a ten million Kwacha fine, which is,5,700 dollars or get imprisoned for ten years.

ESCOM has also introduced an offence in the new Act, regarding stolen equipment, which leads to thirty years in jail with no option of a fine payment.

On that note about penalties, you might have to pay one if you continue using thin plastics. On Monday the 24th, the government established that it would ban the production, selling, and use of thin plastic as of the 8th of July. The Malawi Environment Protection Authority will enforce the ban, and they have said there will be severe penalties, but they didn’t say what these are.

On Saturday the 22nd, the Lilongwe City Council ordered all local and international coach buses to relocate their operations to Grand Business Park by Monday the 24th. The buses currently operate at different locations across the city.

Even though this may be the Council’s way of boosting business at the newly constructed Grand Business Park, the place might not be ready for bus operators or travelers.

Locals on social media have started pulling out old news articles that showed architectural designs of what the Grand Business Park was supposed to look like, and said they felt robbed because the new park looks nothing like the designs.

In Malawi, locals usually have more than one phone number because if the network is bad on one network operator, you simply switch to another. However, this might not be necessary anymore.

The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (or MACRA) is working on implementing the Mobile Number Portability (or MNP) project - a service that allows mobile users to keep their numbers when they switch from one mobile network operator to another, instead of having to get a new number.

And to close this edition, some entertainment news. Maverick City, a Grammy award-winning worship music group, and Kirk Franklin, a US gospel singer, are set to perform at the Malawi Square in Lilongwe on the 11th of August. This is part of their Kingdom World Tour, which will see them performing in Africa, Asia, and Europe. According to the organizers, the Kingdom World Tour was put together so Christians and other believers could sing and worship God.

Locals have already started purchasing their tickets.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Pitani bwino!