President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera has reiterated his administration’s commitment to build a modern military that plays a positive role in helping Malawi attain the Malawi 2063 agenda.

He made known his sentiments on Saturday in Salima when he conferred academic honours on senior officers from the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) who have attained Post Graduate Diplomas in Strategic Studies and Passed Staff Certificates at the newly-established Command and Staff College in Salima.

Since attainment of independence in 1964, Malawi has had no Staff College of its own meaning officers were being sent to foreign schools both in Africa and overseas for such training.

The inaugural graduation of the college comprised a total of twenty Grade II Senior Command and Staff Officers. They have gone through 46 weeks of training by Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST).

The Malawi leader pledged that his government will continue pumping in resources into MDF for it to become a modern military institution of international repute.

“It is within our growth plan for this training to eventually go beyond the Staff College towards the establishment of a War College offering the highest military training of both senior military officers and civilians. With this strong start and our resolve to keep going, there is no reason why we should not reach that destination,” he said.

Before the graduation ceremony the President inspected infrastructure at the college campus and was also taken through other plans in the pipeline to construct more structures at the campus.

In her address, MUST Vice Chancellor Professor Address Malata commended the Malawi Defence Force for creating partnerships with institutions of higher learning as way of building leadership capacity among its officers.