MCP tells govt to bail out Air Malawi

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Category: News Flash

Published on Friday, 29 June 2012 07:15

Written by Terence Mwamlima

Representatives of the Malawi Congress Party on Thursday advised government not to privatize the country’s sole airline, Air Malawi, but bail it out of its financial struggles.

This comes barely days after local economists suggested that the company be engaged in a commercialization process through the public, private partnership, because it has been incurring huge losses on the market for years, a development which forced it to temporarily stop operating early this year.

Latest reports show that the company has debts of over K2 billion. The government has on several occasions also injected funds into the company to sustain its business operations.

But speaking in Parliament in reaction to these sentiments, MCP spokesperson on Finance, Joseph Njobvuyalema said the company should instead be fully supported with reasonable funding from the government.

Njobvuyalema said “What we need is a fully fledged funding for the airliner. Government should give it a lot of money, for instance, from one particular financial year, let Air Malawi get almost the lion share of the total national budget.

“Then the company will generate profits and be fully operational like any other airline.”

Meanwhile, cabinet is to meet in the coming weeks to discuss the future of the airline.