Editors PickNational News

Parliament postpones committee meetings

The National Assembly has postponed parliamentary committee meetings scheduled for this week, among them interviews of diplomatic appointees which the Public Appointments Committee (PAC) was expected to conduct.

The Nation

 has found that the meetings have been postponed due to changes in the financial management system at Treasury, which has also caused delays in payments at district councils.

The meetings were confirmed last week and in the case of PAC, diplomatic appointees ready to appear for interviews included former Council for Non-Governmental Organisations in Malawi (Congoma) chairperson Voice Mhone who is set to go to Germany and lawyer Necton Mhura who is heading to the United States of America.

Acting Clerk of Parliament Roosevelt Gondwe said in an interview Parliament requested for funding for committee meetings, but cheques have not been approved by the Accountant General.

Said Gondwe: “When the cheques are issued, the committees will meet. No meeting has been cancelled, but postponed. We were avoiding keeping MPs [Members of Parliament] in the committee rooms when they have no money for accommodation and meals.”

But committee chairperson for Health, Juliana Lunguzi, whose meeting has also been postponed, expressed disappointment that an opportunity has been lost to interface with critical bodies such as Health Service Commission, donors and Central Medical Stores Trust.

Another committee, which was expected to meet this week, was Statutory Corporations chaired by UDF MP Lilian Patel.

 

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. Why do they need money to have a meeting?? If they are serious about having meetings they can have conference calls. All they need is a phone. Can somebody teach these dunderheads tele-conferencing? It save a lot of money!!!!

  2. Ha. Crying for my beloved country Malawi. Can the Statutory Committee work on the issues of Blantyre Water Board. We are hearing that there was the team which was set up to investigate the issues surrounding the embattled CEO of Blantyre Water Board, Andrew Thawe. He is accused of misproccurement of goods and services. How far have they gone in investigating this guy? Reports reaching us is that Thawe is now busy greasing or palm oiling the members of the investigation team so that the investigation results should not implicate him. Where are we going as a country? APM why are you still keeping the dude who has let down a lot of people in Blantyre City because of his corrupt practices. Some people in the city are spending weeks without water despite the organisation having the project funded by EIB and World Bank. How come MR. President you have fired CEOS in other organisation with valid reasons. How special is Thawe? Should we believe what we hear that DPP gets money from BWB through him? Is that the reason why you want to keep this guy at BWB? Do you think this way you are encouraging the parastatal CEOs to swindle the organisations as much as they bearing in mind that they will left free. I am told that the PSs who are in the investigation team are his friends. Are we going to have fair and just investigation in that way. We hear that so far MK15000000 has already been spent on this investigation by the team. As a country looking at this figure will we be taken seriously that we are a country in financial shambles. Can we afford this luxury while more than 6000 primary school teachers are not receiving their salaries since May?

    Do we really have journalists who did investigative journalism who can expose these issues? I am sick with our country. I looks like we are tolerating nonsense.

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