Expectations, rumours and happy hour

After elections, I have been quite involved in development of a service charter for Salima district. The charter will basically allow people to demand services and complain about poor services from Government departments. This raised the expectations of many. Of course among the critical issues will be, will Government supply enough teachers, nurses and agricultural extension officers among others to meet the raised expectations of the people. This is one of those issues that the Salima District Executive committee will have to look at seriously.

Still on the same, there are high expectations from the administration of President Bingu wa Mutharika, from the health sector through to basic empowerment. I personally look forward to the K3 billion Youth Entreprise Fund to be instituted soon. I know Mutharika personally has an interest in it too, this is the basis of engineering small scale businessess with potential to grow into national entreprises. The youth have enthusiasm, the energy and innovation ideas. You Tube, Face Book and many others were started by young people. I hope to have a say in the programme to include many yong people in the initiative.

The expectations of the women too will need to be checked, as with the ascendancy of Joyce Banda to be the country's second citizen, the women are looking forward to a more glorious days and opportunities beyond the rhetoric.

The elderly still have expectations of what has been promised to them for the last five years. Hopefully this time there will be no cases of a Minister swindling the poor.

As usual we are in a season of rumours, of course apart from Henry Chimunthu Banda and others being confirmed as Speaker, Jones Chingola first deputy and Julian Mphande as second deputy, the choice of Goodall Gondwe as Leader of the House should raise a lot of speculations. Is he or not he returning to Finance.

Dr. George Chaponda is a cool man and though many of those that have commented on my last posting on cabinet, I still prefer him as a cool face of the country. We dont want hot shots to hold our diplomacy. Joyce Banda held the Ministry with honour and we hope for continuity.

Of course other rumours are ridiculous such as Atcheya Bakili Muluzi getting a Hummer vehicle, or JZU Tembo going outside the country, but some rumours are good to follow up.

There are two characters I am told will likely miss out from the cabinet, these two have been behaving as clever junks in the past cabinets and fanning every little gossip into reality. I wont miss them these two double faced characters and let them be back benchers for a while to learn that they are indespensable.

Finally my happy hour this weekend was when I travelled to Lupembe in the troubled Karonga Central constituency, I was touched by a sign post near Lupembe Agricultural Training Centre which read: Ethel Mutharika gardern.

The voice of the late First Lady in empowering still rings in Karonga. May God Rest soul in eternal peace!!!