adminThis is President Banda’s first foreign trip since assuming office on 7 April following the death of President Bingu Mutharika on 5 April due to cardiac arrest.
Speaking to reporters before leaving Chileka International Airport, Banda said she was visiting the two presidents to seek advice and to discuss several issues on diplomatic relations and promotion of trade between Malawi and the two countries respectively.
Banda said she was also meeting Zuma to thank him for the assistance and support his government rendered to the government of Malawi during the time of bereavement following Mutharika’s death.
Banda disclosed that there would soon be bilateral cooperation meetings between the two country’s ministers of foreign affairs and ministers of finance on bilateral trade among other areas.
Earlier the week, the government of South Africa presented a US$10 million cheque to the Malawian government as part of a US$25 million aid the former government pledged to help cushion fuel shortage in Malawi for at least a month.
The Malawi president said that her proceeding to Liberia is to tap knowledge from Africa’s first female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, whom Banda described as her role model.
Banda is the first female president in Malawi and Southern Africa and the second female president on the continent. — Xinhua.
Online Reporter