At least one person has been rushed to hospital to be treated for a gun-shot wound while others have sustained baton stick inflicted injuries as police fired teargas in a helpless effort to disperse striking civil servants in Malawi’s Capital, Lilongwe.
Striking Civil servants mounted tree branch and stone barricades as they tussled with police while chanting anti-Joyce Banda and anti-Government songs, singing that President Banda has failed as leader, who must quit or the country, already in tatters, will be buried into a bottomless pit.
For the second week that that the strike, which is now spreading into all corners of the country and attracting other public workers, President Joyce Banda has been holed up some 350 kilometres away in Malawi’s Commercial city, Blantyre.
She had been scheduled to leave for South Africa on the first day of the strike on Monday last week for a short holiday, a move many observers interpreted to mean she was fleeing from the trouble of the strike for which she had no clue to solve.
The planned trip was cancelled because her departure time coincided with the passing of an influential chief among the Ngonis based in Northern Malawi were her support base is noticeable somewhat.
Things are not well in Malawi after Malawi’s President Joyce Banda implemented massive currency devaluation following the advice of the IMF. The devaluation and floatation of the Malawian Kwacha has resulted in severe hardships for Malawi’s civil servants who have seen their buying power reduced by more than half. The civil servants are now demanding a 67% pay increase.
Heavily armed riot police in full combat gear were brought in to intimidate the resolute protesters while the president fled to the commercial city Blantyre apparently to meet nurses who also are about to go on strike following shortage of drugs in hospitals.
“The situation is unbearable. How can we work when our salaries are now buying less than half of what we used to buy, and all the while there isn’t even any medicines to give the patients in hospitals?” lamented one nurse in Blantyre.
“We have already heard that the president is planning to give us all some brown envelopes with money to stop us from going on strike, but I do not think it is going to solve the problem. People are suffering and giving money only to nurses is not a solution.”
Meanwhile, Consumer Association of Malawi (CAMA) has warned of more nationwide protests following government’s dismissal of the petition that was presented in the nationwide protests that were organized by CAMA on January 17.
Depite of all these problems needing her attention, President Banda is scheduled to leave for Guinea on a State visit.
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