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Deputy Minister Dr. Owen Chomanika visits the Kachione Blantyre workshop
27 August 2024: Dr. Owen Chomanika, the Deputy Minister of Local Government, Unity and Culture, visited the Blantyre workshop. He was very interested in our products, and expressed his appreciation and encouragement, recognizing that we were providing tangible benefits to rural Malawians. We are told that the next day he reported on his visit to seven government ministers and the president.
Robert Van Buskirk and Gilbert Robert discuss the Forever Battery, Bateri Lokhalista, with Dr. Chomanika, with Rachel Kanyerere looking on.
Victoria, Eggrey and Gilbert describe the solar electric pressure cookers to Deputy Minister Chomanika. In the background are ten experimental cooking stations where solar energy input required to cook different types & quantities of food is recorded.
Rachel explains the solar irrigation pump system to Dr. Chomanika. It was a day of thick clouds, so the pump was not pumping. Gilbert explains that the crops need the water the most on sunny days, not so much on cloudy days. Suddenly the clouds opened and the pump begins gushing a geyser of water high into the air! The Deputy Minister sees that the pump actually is powerful. Next time we will hook it up to the 100m hose.
Deputy Minister Chomanika describes how our work fits into Malawi's development effort by bringing off-grid solar electrification to the villages.
Afterword: A few months after his visit, Dr. Chomanika was promoted to be the Minister of Natural Resources and Climate Change, representing the MCP. Then in the recent September 2025 national election, MCP was decisively defeated by DPP and Dr. Chomanika lost both his cabinet position and his seat in parliament.
We are a non-partisan organization. We certainly look forward to cooperating with the new administration, and hope that DPP government officials will visit us soon.