President Lazarus Chakwera on Thursday took advantage of the launch of the National Data Centre to hit back at critics describing them as prophets of doom who are just investing their energy to frustrate his administration.
Speaking at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences Sports Complex after commisioning the National Data Centre, Chakwera said it is sad that for the two years he has been in office there is some section of the society that all what is doing is to frustrate his administration.
Chakwera reminded his critics that building a new nation is a process that requires preparation, collaboration and patience.
The Malawi leader said it is sad that for the couple of years he has been at the helm, some people have deliberately decided to ignore the development projects he is initiating.
“When we established Affordable Inputs Program they declared that it was doomed to fail,When we introduced NEEF to improve income they declared it was doomed to fail,when we established the Presidential Delivery Unit they declared it was doomed to fail,when we deployed resources towards Covid-19 pandemic they declared it was doomed to fail,when we started construction of dozens of neglected roads they declared it was doomed to fail. For two years we have reclaimed our place within the SADC bloc but every time I travel to negotiate for partnership opportunities they declare that our international engagements are useless and are doomed to fail. But let me tell you here that the only thing that is going to fail is their prophecies of doom against us,” said the Malawi leader attracting jeers from the crowd that came to witness the commisioning of the Data Centre.
Meanwhile, Chakwera believes the national data center has potential of improving service delivery within public and the private sector.
“Now that the Data Centre has been finalized and is operational we need to harmonise and streamline delivery of digital services to citizens in a secure way ending the current set up where data hosting is fragmented with MDAs having separate servers with some in informal territories and now that the Data centre has been completed we can begin cutting costs by enhancing collaboration between different digitalization projects by the government’, said Chakwera.
The National Data Centre is a Malawi government initiative which is being run in collaboration with Hueawei Technologies and the Electricity Commission of Malawi-ESCOM.