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President Bingu wa Mutharika and his Foreign Affairs Minister George Chaponda have commended the outgoing British High Commissioner to Malawi Norman Ling for the role he played to improve the country’s economy and democracy.
Speaking at a farewell reception in Lilongwe Thursday, Chaponda said there has been a remarkable increase in the amount of financial and technical support from the United Kingdom during Ling’s tenure of office.
According to the Malawi News Agency (Mana) Mutharika also stressed the same point when he had farewell talks and dinner with Ling on Friday and Saturday respectively.
Chaponda said UK remains one of the major bilateral donors to Malawi, providing support in various sectors of the economy, including agriculture, health, transport, economy, energy and community development.
“In the education sector alone a total of 61 million pound sterling has been set aside for the implementation of various projects during the period 2001 to 2007,” said Chaponda, adding that the projects will help improve the quality of education in the country.
He also cited 28 million pound sterling the British government provided for the Malawi Safety, Security and Access to Justice Programme (Massaj) aimed at improving the safety of people in the country and their property.
According to Chaponda, government is also implementing the integrated financial management and information system and the land and public sector reforms programme.
“On our part, we undertake to ensure that all assistance provided to Malawi is used for the intended purposes,” said Chaponda.
In his remarks, Ling who was scheduled to leave on Sunday, said Malawi’s democracy has improved over the past three years he has been here, but said the country needs to focus more on economic growth, an area which he said is still behind.
Ling said he has enjoyed being a friendly adviser to the government of Malawi on various challenges the country faced but managed to overcome.
“Malawi has a stronger democracy now than three years ago when I came,” said Ling.
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