Without discrimination, Malawi president Lazarus Chakwera said yesterday during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) that his administration has reached over 3.8 million Malawians facing food insecurity with food aid.
Said the President:
“The living conditions and poverty of many Malawians are so harsh that millions are still unable to feed themselves.
“In 2020, over 2.6 million people in 581,775 households were determined to be food insecure, and despite the successes of the Affordable Inputs Programme in 2021, over 1.6 million people in 367,395 households were still determined to be food insecure, which increased by more than double in 2022.
“In the past three months alone, my Administration has had to support over 3.8 million Malawians in 847,421 households in all three regions of the country with food items or cash to buy
food.”
President for all Malawians
The President said was saddened when one Member of Parliament from Mulanje came to thank him for ensuring that the people in his constituency who are food insecure had received their allocation of food, for he feared that his constituency would be excluded from the relief because he sits on the opposition side and because he knows that past Administrations had a habit of politicizing food and using cycles of hunger for political ends.
However, said the President:
“But that is not the vision I have for the country, and that is not what Malawians want. What Malawians want is for us to become a nation of people who can produce enough to afford to feed
themselves without owing anyone here at home or abroad any thanks for it.
