By Chisomo Phiri
President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera has commended the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for taking a leading role in facilitating the creation of a lead-free environment for children globally, ensuring a sustainable future generation.
He made the remarks on Monday during a partnership for a Lead-Free Future meeting with the USAID delegation in New York, USA.
Chakwera stated that since assuming office, his government discovered high levels of lead in paint being sold on the Malawian market, resulting in the exposure of three million Malawian children to lead poisoning.
He stated that while millions of dollars are being poured into education, the outcomes of that education are being compromised by the impairment of children’s cognitive development caused by lead poisoning.
“Not to say anything of the cost of treating lead-related illnesses to the tune of close to one billion dollars every year, which is over five per cent of GDP,” Chakwera said.
The Malawi leader indicated that in the first year of his office, the government committed the resources of the Malawi Bureau of Standards(MBS) to collaborate with the Lead Exposure Elimination Project in providing stronger enforcement of lead paint regulations, including better testing facilities to detect lead in products.
“This measure alone resulted in the reduction of the market share of brands with lead paint by 50 percent within two years and secured the commitment of two-thirds of all manufacturers to go lead-free,” he explained.
The President then expressed Malawi’s commitment to joining the partnership for a Lead-Free future, to have access to the necessary international support to achieve such important benchmarks as identifying all key sources of lead exposure in Malawi.
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