{"id":12525,"date":"2025-10-06T09:32:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T07:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/malawi-president-appoints-economist-mwanamvekha-as-finance-minister\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:25:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:25:51","slug":"malawi-president-appoints-economist-mwanamvekha-as-finance-minister","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/malawi-president-appoints-economist-mwanamvekha-as-finance-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Malawi President appoints economist Mwanamvekha as Finance Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Malawi&#8217;s newly-elected President Peter Mutharika named Joseph Mwanamvekha as Finance Minister late on Sunday, returning him to a role he held from 2016 to 2020 as the country faces challenges such as foreign exchange shortages and rising living costs.<\/p>\n<p>Mwanamvekha is an economist and former banker and served during Mutharika&#8217;s first administration.<\/p>\n<p>His appointment comes as Malawi faces ongoing fuel shortages, debt distress and a constrained business environment, exacerbated by currency instability.<\/p>\n<p>Mutharika, who was sworn in on Saturday following his victory in last month&#8217;s presidential election, has yet to announce a full cabinet.<\/p>\n<p>He also named Enoch Chihana as second\u00a0Vice President\u00a0and George Chaponda as\u00a0Foreign Affairs Minister,\u00a0a position he held during Mutharika&#8217;s previous term.<\/p>\n<p>Former Law Professor Mutharika was credited with lowering inflation during his 2014 to 2020 presidency and improving public infrastructure like roads. But he faced allegations of cronyism, which he has denied.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12526,"template":"default||default||default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-12525","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"President Mutharika named Mwanamvekha as Finance Minister||President Mutharika named Mwanamvekha as Finance Minister||President Mutharika named Mwanamvekha as Finance Minister||President Mutharika named Mwanamvekha as Finance Minister","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18091,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12525\/revisions\/18091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=12525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}