The Council for Non-Governmental Organisations in Malawi (Congoma) says the Tonse Alliance administration has failed to address challenges Malawians faced in the just ended-year 2022.

Congoma, in a statement released on Saturday and signed by its board chairperson Kossam Munthali, cited rising poverty levels now estimated at above 51 percent, increased inequality and food insecurity as some of the factors pointing to the Executive’s poor performance.

Reads the statement in part: “Poverty levels continue growing with increased inequality, deprivation and destitution in the country. The hunger situation has also aggravated despite spending billions of kwacha on the Affordable Inputs Programme in agriculture.

“There is high youth unemployment despite campaign promises of one million jobs which is further exacerbated by the recent general recruitment freeze into public service and general inadequate investments into production in the economy.”

The council further cited the devaluation of the kwacha by 25 percent on May 25 2022 without any export growth which negatively affected foreign exchange reserves, leading to fuel scarcity and increased prices of goods and services on the market.

The statement said the year was marred by persistent power outages despite a  campaign promise of increasing power generation to at least 1 000 megawatts (MW). Malawi’s power demand is estimated at 618MW, according to the Malawi Government Annual Economic Report, but generation has drastically dropped to less than 300MW due to, among other factors, the damage of Kapichira Hydro-electric Power Station by Tropical Cyclone Ana which took off 130MW from the national grid.

Congoma commended the Judiciary for maintaining public trust despite operating under tight budgets, but urged the arm of government to work on reducing its backlog of cases.

Congoma has since called on Malawians to be active citizens and speak patriotically against maladministration, non-responsive State and other ills.

But speaking in an earlier interview, government spokesperson Gospel Kazako has on a number of occasions said government is working hard to fix challenges rocking the country and believes the efforts are bearing fruits.

He said: “The systems were rotten to an extent of creating a free-for-all in the past 26 years. This is the time we need to stand together as a nation. Malawi will not be the same, we are confident, we shall prevail.

“We are laying a concrete foundation on which we are building a better Malawi for all.”

The Tonse Alliance administration, led by President Lazarus Chakwera, rose to power through the court-sanctioned Fresh Presidential Election held on June 23 2020 promising Malawians change.

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