Mbewe says coronavirus has greatly affected business

By Robert Kumwenda and Orchestra Kamanga

Lance Mwai Mbewe Managing Director for Trust Group of Companies has said coronavirus has greatly affected their business.

Mbewe said most of their clients have stopped visiting the company for business thereby forcing the company to send some of its staff on leave.

“We are yet to see what will happen if the measures that government has put in place to control the spread of the pandemic will be implemented. We usually make about k2,million in a normal business day but now we are only making k400,000 or less in a day,” he said.

Mbewe said government should put a stimulus package of some sort because their worry is how they are going to sustain paying salaries for employees.

He said it would have been better if there could be away of cautioning this in the event that they are not able to pay salaries.

Meanwhile, President Arthur Peter Mutharika has introduced an Emergency Cash Transfer Program to serve small scale businesses in and around Malawi’s four cities of Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu, Zomba and others.

The Emergency Cash Transfer Program will run a period of six months translating into 3 months of response and 3 months of recovery.