UTM president Dalitso Kabambe has confirmed that there were disagreements between him and Auction Holdings Limited (AHL) over his unplanned visit to Chinkhoma Auction Floors.
However, he avoided to comment on he claims that one of AHL security officers got injured during the confrontation.
On Tuesday, Kabambe made a surprise visit to the Floors where AHL and it’s subsidiary AHL Tobacco Sales Limited, said his security team violently roughed up the company’s security and in the process injuring the guard’s arm.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Kabambe said the action by AHL to block him from entering the Floors was not an isolated incident, as he was previously blocked from delivering a public lecture at Mzuzu University and denied access to Chancellor College.
“To this day, I have not been allowed to speak at LUANAR. What do all these places have in common? They are state-funded institutions, now manipulated by those in power to exclude opposition voices. Let us be honest with ourselves: this is no longer mere mismanagement.
“It is a coordinated attempt to suppress democracy-to turn public institutions into tools of political control, where voices of reason are silenced and dissent is criminalized.
“Even the public broadcaster has been turned into a mouthpiece of propaganda, led by politically aligned individuals. To our development partners, I issue this solemn reminder: Malawi’s democracy is under siege.
If you believe in democratic governance, then silence in the face of oppression is complicity. Our country needs your voice now more than ever. And to our farmers-the soul of our land-I say: you have been abandoned, you have been neglected, but you are not alone.
“To those who think that they can intimidate us with threats and false statements, I say this: you can bar me from universities, you can block me from auction floors, but you will never stop the will of the Malawian people,” he said
