Chakwera hires new Macra board

President Lazarus Chakwera has appointed a new board of directors for Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) with most faces from the previous board retained.

The new board is chaired by Bridget Chibwana and the members include Alekeni Menyani, Stella Chuthi, Malla Kaiya Kawale, Isaac Songea and the Reverend Father Francis Damaseke.

Menyani, Chuthi, Kawale and Songea have been retained from the previous board while former board chairperson Stanley Khaila and Reverend Father Henry Saindi have been left out.

In an interview yesterday, Minister of Information and Digitisation Moses Kunkuyu said the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC)  and comptroller of Statutory Corporations were better placed to explain the appointments.

“The ministry does not appoint the board. It is the President who appoints the board,” he said.

Kunkuyu further refused to state whether the ministry was involved in the nominations, saying “focus is appointments and not nominations”.

Speaking in an interview yesterday, Comptroller of Statutory Corporations Peter Simbani confirmed that there is a new board for Macra appointed on Saturday.

He said the members of the board are expected to be confirmed by the Public Appointments Committee (PAC) of Parliament.

“They can only start working if PAC confirms them. They will be confirmed tomorrow at 5pm because the chairperson and vice- chairperson of PAC will be arriving tomorrow. They were part of the team that went to Israel,” said Simbani.

He said the except for two, the board chairperson and Damaseke, the rest of the members served in the old board which, according to him, performed well.

But governance expert Moses Mkandawire faulted government for taking time to come up with the new board, saying parastatals need to operate with boards to provide guidance.

He also called on government to consider Khaila for another role, saying he proved to be a performer and can help revive other institutions. He said people of such calibre should be utilised to turn around institutions.

In October last year, Macra director-general Daud Suleman came under fire for proposing nominations of those to be considered in the Macra board. He had written the comptroller of Statutory Corporations in September last year and gave a list of former board members, arguing that the members performed well during their tenure, as such, needed to be reappointed.