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Chenda dead
By
Francis Tayanjah-Phiri - 31-03-2003 |
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President Bakili Muluzi’s Political Advisor and Mzuzu business magnate Chenda Mkandawire died in the late hours of Saturday after a three-week fight against malaria and pneumonia.
Both UDF top officials and his family members confirmed his death, saying his burial will take place on Tuesday at his home village of Kamzinga at Bolero in Rumphi.
“We have lost Hon. Chenda Mkandawire, a veteran politician who was influential among us here. He died last night and he will be buried Tuesday at Bolero,” said Northern Region UDF governor Wyson Mkochi in an interview on Sunday.
Mkochi said vice president Justin Malewezi is expected to preside over the funeral on behalf of President Bakili Muluzi.
The late Mkandawire, 65, is survived by four children, 12 grandchildren and one great grandchild, according to his second born daughter Chiharo Botha.
Mkandawire was trained as a church minister at Livingstonia in Rumphi by the Livingstonia Synod when he was a young man.
“However, my father did not practise as a church minister, but got a job at Rothmans Tobacco in Zambia before he came back to launch his business empire here at home,” said Botha.
From a grocery shop at Ndirande Flats in 1972, Chenda established his chain of grocery stores at Area 18, Chilinde and Area 25, in Lilongwe. Later, he retired to Mzuzu where he built Chenda Hotel and a supermarket.
Chenda went into active politics after being enticed by the late Reverend Aaron Longwe, then an Alliance for Democracy (Aford) activist in the early 1990s. He was detained in 1992 for political activism.
He served as treasurer general of Aford and was in 1994 elected Aford MP for Mzuzu City. Later, when Aford went into partnership with UDF in government, Chenda became deputy minister of Health.
When Aford president Chakufwa Chihana pulled out of a the UDF/Aford coalition government, Makandawire was one of the ministers who remained in the UDF government. He later served as deputy minister of Relief and Rehabilitation and defected to the ruling party, on whose ticket he stood and lost his parliamentary seat in the 1999 general elections.
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