By Chancy Namadzunda:
President Lazarus Chakwera has expressed optimism that the incoming second Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact project will transform the country’s infrastructure sector.
Last week the United States Government announced that it has approved a US$350 million (almost MK350 billion) package for Malawi’s second Compact through the directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)Board.
The signing of the new compact deal is expected to take place in Washington DC next month.
Writing on his Facebook page on Thursday afternoon, Chakwera says the second compact will focus on infrastructure development.
“This second Compact will go towards infrastructure projects, thus intensifying our ambitious nationwide program of building modern roads, in both urban and rural areas, that will spur economic growth and reduce the cost of transporting goods and people for generations to come,” writes Chakwera.
Chakwera observed that with massive investment in the infrastructure sector there will be strategic linkages between farms and markets thereby easing the movement of profitable goods by smallholder farmers.
He expressed optimism that the signing of the compact will open further investment opportunities into the country.
“Additionally, the official signing of the compact next month will open opportunities for further investment into Malawi, as it will signal to those investors we have been inviting here that our economy is fertile ground for sowing seeds for the future and that our agro-industrialisation agenda will soon have the supporting roads to bring prosperity to rural farmers and other stakeholders along the Agriculture value chain,” writes Chakwera.
This is the second time that Malawi will be benefitting from the MCC compact programme.
The first compact focused on improving the country’s energy sector by among other things enhancing the country’s power generation capacity by constructing additional power transmission centres as well as improving quality of power lines to reduce the amount of electricity power lost during the transmission process.
