President Robert Mugabe will be among several other heads of states and government attending the burial of the late Malawian President Bingu waMutharika on Monday.
Presidential spokesperson George Charamba yesterday confirmed his boss’ scheduled trip to Malawi next week.
“This is the burial of a head of state and we are going there,” Charamba said. WaMutharika died of heart attack in a South African hospital two weeks ago.He was 78.
Two months ago, waMutharika paid a courtesy call on Mugabe in Harare although details of his visit were not made public.
Other heads of state and government leaders billed to witness the burial are South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete, Mozambique’s Armando Guebuza, Benin’s Thomas Yayi Boni, Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki and Namibia’s Hipikepunye Pohamba.
Angola will be represented by its Speaker of the National Assembly Antonio Paulo Kasoma while China will be represented by a yet-to-be-named cabinet minister.
Mutharika will be buried at his sprawling Ndata Farm in the southern tea-growing district of Thyolo. Malawi’s Local Government minister Henry Mussa, who is chairing waMutharika’s funeral committee said the country’s late economist-turned-politician will be buried in a mausoleum he constructed for his first wife, Ethel, who died of cancer in 2007 aged 64.
“The President had already instructed his family members that he should be buried at Ndata Farm when he dies so we cannot go against his wishes,” Mussa said.
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l Meanwhile, there is confusion over the precise date of waMutharika’s death.
The late leader, reviled by many in Malawi and the intertational community, was rushed to hospital after collapsing on April 5, but could not be saved. He died on the same day according to doctors who treated him at Kamuzu Central Hospital.
But it has emerged official records said he died on April 7.
