Leader of the Opposition Kondwani Nankhumwa has described Chakwera’s fifth appearance in Parliament as a lost opportunity for a Head of State arguing that legislators present issues from the public which should not be taken personal.

Nankhumwa singled out his response to the President’s State of the nation address (SONA) on Bridgin Foundation which the current administration went to town about on the supposedly lucrative K7 trillion financing as an area that needed explanation.

“But a few days down the line after those signatures and flowery languages and speeches, we were shocked to hear that these were the Dobadobas because Bridgin Foundation does not exist anywhere and true to that; the President skipped that and it shows that yes those who were saying these are Dobadobas were right and even the Minister, his own Minister saying this is nonsense.

“Now those are some of the issues I wanted to him to address. Like today, innocently I asked about the cost of living in the country specifically on the maize the staple food of the country. Maize is currently selling at around K40, 000, K50, 000 in our markets. Now my question was what are the short term, medium term and long term measures that the price of this commodity should not continue to rise and of course other commodities?

“Instead of him responding to my question directly, he says that ah no I already addressed that issue in the other SONA’s back and on my question about the insecurity in the country there’s a lot of insecurity armed robbery is almost everywhere people are mounting even suspicious roadblocks in the country. The good example is yesterday in Blantyre where the Police went to shoot down some of those robbers. That’s a clear sign that nothing is working in the country”.

He stated that the President’s response was disappointing especially to the point of insinuating that some of the opposition figures are actually happy about the security lapses.

“Now that is very unfortunate to a head of State. I thought that that was his opportunity to spell what measures that he and his government and his Ministers are doing to arrest this problem”.

Responding to some of the issues raised by Nankhumwa, Chakwera disclosed that the office of the Attorney General is working on corruption allegations related to businessman Zuneth Sattar who is being investigated over his company’s dealings with the Malawi government by the British National Crime Agency (NCA).

The President said the AG has a duty to determine the kind of evidence and progress made so far not out of pressure, but in line with the law.

On concerns to do with people’s access to good water in relation to the Cholera outbreak, Chakwera indicated this has been outlined on various platforms and asked Nankhumwa to pay more attention noting that he spent time responding to last year’s SONA and making personal attacks on him based on allegations.