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Tutu: Prioritise poverty
27/09/2003 18:38 - (SA)
Blantyre - Retired archbishop Desmond Tutu called on Saturday for African governments to make the fight against poverty and disease a top priority.
"I think we have got to be saying to our governments: 'Let us reorder our priorities'," the Anglican cleric told reporters after attending a regional conference on tuberculosis (TB) and lung diseases in the capital Lilongwe.
"How can we persuade our governments to realise that it is obscene to spend so much on arms in the absence of an external enemy when the greatest threats in most of our countries are poverty, disease and ignorance?"
Tutu, a former Nobel peace laureate, said that African governments could improve the welfare of their people with the little resources they had at their disposal.
"Let us use what we have got to the best of our ability," he said. "With simple, well-thought-out programmes [Africa] can make a difference."
Tutu also paid a courtesy call on Malawi President Bakili Muluzi.
- AFP
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