ADDIS ABABA,  Ethiopia--Vice Pres Khumbo Khachali says Malawians had every reason to celebrate Pres Joyce Banda’s 100 days in office, describing the period as successful.

Kachali assured the nation that the People’s Party (PP)-led government would rid the country of the  economic problems it inherited from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) with the passing of time.

He said 100 days had elapsed since Banda assumed the office on April 7 after the death of her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika, and that the president was already proving her worth.

“We are in government as your servants,” Kachali said when he hosted Malawians living in Ethiopia at the Malawi embassy on Saturday. “You are seeing the changes.”

Kachali is in Ethiopia to represent Pres Banda at the 19th AU Heads of State and government summit which started Sunday.  

Kachali said one of the noticeable changes the country had witnessed under the leadership of Banda was freedom unlike during the reign of the immediate past government.

“These days you can feel that freedom. We now have freedom to express ourselves,” he said, adding that the freedom Malawians fought for in the early 1990s was taken away by the previous government.

He said Malawians should see themselves as one people regardless of where they come from.

“Let us give one another positions on merit and respect each other as Malawians,” Kachali said.

On the devaluation of the Malawi currency, the vice president said it was a necessary evil that the PP government had to effect sooner than later if the country was to overcome its enormous economic challenges.

“We looked at what was best for our country. Today as result of the devaluation, foreign exchange is available which has resulted in the suffocation of the parallel market,” he said.

Kachali said the shortage of foreign exchange reached such a critical point that even cabinet ministers had no choice but source it from the black market.

“As time goes, Malawi will be where it is supposed to be,” he said, adding that president Banda was a leader who “does things to move the country forward and not for political appeasement.”

He urged Malawians living in the Diaspora to be proactive and suggest solutions to various problems that they were encountering. He said they had a crucial role to play in national development.

Earlier, the chairman of Malawi community in Ethiopia Chriss Kachiza highlighted problems that  Malawians living abroad were facing such as access to land,  lack of data base for Malawians in the Diaspora.
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©2012 The Maravi Post. Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgment.