The Committee on Natural Resources and Climate Change in Parliament chairperson Werani Chilenga has said the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) wishes for fuel shortage in the country to decampaign the current leadership during the 2025 general elections.
Chilenga made the remarks after he delivered his committee’s report in Parliament, which among others recommended the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA) to reasonably adjust fuel prices as a measure for fuel sustainability in the country.
But the issue sparked a heated debate as DPP parliamentarians walked out of the Parliament in disagreement with the idea.
In an interview, Chilenga questioned the actions by his fellow DPP members of Parliament and further advised the to avoid using the issue for their political gains.
“The committee is not a political tool of parliament, we are here as parliamentary committee to do oversight but some members chose to take it political for their own political reasons.
“They deliberately walked out the house because they don’t want fuel adjucement so that by the end of the day this country should run out of fuel so that they should use it to de-campaign government, to say look government has failed to bring in fuel,” he said
Chilenga further revealed that part of the K784 billion levies, amounting to K380 billion that MERA is struggling to address was borrowed in 2018 by the previous regime.
Leader of Opposition in Parliament (LoP) George Chaponda said they can’t sit and agree to something that will increase economic problems on already struggling Malawians.
“The Tonse Alliance promised that they will never increase the fuel prices but we have seen all their time in power, they have been continuously raising the fuel prices like now so they wanted us to accept the increase of the fuel prices leaving the common man suffering? That’s unacceptable to us,” he said
Chaponda added that MERA could have adopted other mechanisms in dealing with it’s issues instead of putting it to common man.
The Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources that made the recommendation comprised of 21 members including DPP’s Werani Chilenga, Symon Vuwa Kaunda, Shadreck Namalomba, Orphan Shaba, Joseph Nomale as well as Esther Jolobala of UDF, among others.
