At least 12 civil society organisations (CSOs) have written President Peter Mutharika asking him not to sign into law the Constitutional Amendment Bill on the establishment of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and related matters.
In their petition, the CSOs have outlined seven reasons why the President should not sign the Bill, including that the proposed law undermines an active judicial process as the appeal on the matter remains pending before the Supreme Court of Appeal, and that the Bill is a threat to decentralisation and Local Government.
Mutharika. | Nation
Besides establishing CDF, the Bill also outlines its purpose, governance and guiding principles for governance, but also management and utilisation.
The signatories are National Advocacy Platform (NAP), Malawi Local Government Association (Malga), Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency (Csat), National Anti-Corruption Alliance (NACA), Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP), Malawi Economic Justice Network, Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR), Youth and Society (YAS), Nyika Institute, NGO Gender Coordination Network, Centre for Civil Society Strengthening, and the Youth Decide Campaign.
Reads the petition in part: “Creating parallel structures under parliamentary control weakens councils, fragments accountability, and undermines decades of decentralisation reform.
“The recent move by members of Parliament, amounting to a blatant overreach of legislative authority, risks undermining the goodwill and reform intent of Your Excellency’s administration to devolve development planning and implementation to Local Government Councils.”
They are also concerned that the Bill ignores professional legal advice, as technical guidance from the Ministry of Justice and legislative drafting experts warned against assigning executive and administrative roles to legislators due to inherent conflicts with constitutional principles.
Further, they argue that advancing a constitutional amendment of this magnitude as a Private Member’s Bill, without Cabinet sponsorship, comprehensive public consultation or rigorous legal and fiscal analysis sets a dangerous precedent.
Yesterday, Chief Secretary to the Office of President and Cabinet (OPC) Justin Saidi said he had yet to see the said letter in his tray.
“I haven’t received that yet, maybe it’s here, because my tray is full,” he said.
In an earlier interview, former minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Fahad Assan, who was part of the drafting of the Constitution, said that supreme law already has a framework of how government finances can be managed through the Public Finance Management Act.
Earlier this year, the High Court of Malawi sitting as a Constitutional Court delivered a judgement in the case of Registered Trustees of Malga against Attorney General, declaring that the involvement of MPs in the management, prioritisation and implementation of the CDF and Water Resources Fund violated the doctrine of separation of powers under sections 7, 8 and 9 of the Constitution and improperly intruded into the core functions of the Executive.
