President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has yet again condemned greed and selfishness among top ranking civil servants and public officers, lamenting that the vices are delaying the country's transformation.
Chakwera said Malawi is failing to develop because some high ranking officers in the public and private sector are too selfish to give others opportunities to contribute to the change the nation seeks.
He was speaking at the Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe when he presided over the National Day of Prayers. The President called for the prayers to seek and invoke God's intervention in the social and economic difficulties the country is sailing through.
President Chakwera observed that greed and selfishness have motivated high ranking officials in civil and public services to deny energetic and creative young people the opportunity to contribute towards that national development.
''We have governance institutions that are equipped and empowered to serve the interests of poor Malawians and to facilitate development, but they are not able to do this because those who head these institutions lose focus and become distracted by their own prideful desire to use their powers to fight useless personal wars with each other.
''We have millions of Malawians who are united by their faith in God and their desire to transform the country, yet they are not able to unite in developing the country because of prideful leaders who constantly provoke the people to be angry and to refuse to work together,'' he said.
His lamentations come barely a few days after Chief Commissioner of the Islamic Commission for Justice and Freedom (ICJF), Shaibu A. Ajassie, warned Chakwera against entertaining selfish and greedy officials at the State House and Capital Hill whom he accused of propagating hate for competent public officers.
Ajassie, through an audio clip released to the social media, condemned the tendency of certain CSOs and individuals who 'cook up' stories to tarnish the image of presidential appointees to influence their dismissal from the civil as well as public service, citing a recommendation from the Public Affairs Committee (PAC) to fire Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) Colleen Zamba.
He alleged that Zamba is a victim of gossip and backbiting at the Capital Hill and State House.
President Chakwera seemed to agree with Ajassie when he lamented that Malawi is refusing to register the much-needed infrastructure transformation because of selfish and greedy people entrusted with responsibility to oversee implementation of development projects.
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But the Head of State pointed out that all is not lost, stressing that Malawians simply need to humble themselves before God and seek His face to turn around the country's social and economic standing.
He said Malawi is blessed with enough resources to facilitate transformation.
''Just consider the blessings we have already received from God as a nation, but which are squandered every day because of our pride and wickedness. We have a lake with more freshwater than most nations in the world, but we cannot pump it into people's homes because any proposed project to do so gets blocked by ourselves because we are too proud to support each other's ideas.
''We have fertile land in abundance, but we cannot use it to produce food to feed the world because any program we set up to give our farmers inputs gets corrupted by our own wickedness and greed in the procurement process. We have beautiful attractions and weather that makes Malawi a great destination for tourists, but we cannot create friendly conditions for bringing tourists here because any attempt to change our regulatory framework gets blocked for selfish reasons,'' he said.
Added Chakwera, ''But God says that if we want him to answer our prayers, if we want him to heal our land, then we who claim to be his people must first humble ourselves and stop participating in wickedness.
''So as we leave this place of prayer, let us go back into our respective stations and conduct ourselves with enough humility to work together, not alone or against each other.
''Let us go back into our respective stations and conduct ourselves with enough integrity to work for the common good, not for our selfish interests.''
