JB gives Assani Cash-Gate dose

The road to Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe was the same. The banquet room was usual, but the mood therein talked of a sigh of relief on the faces of the many occupants, particularly the reappointed Cabinet ministers.

Every journalists’ eye seemed suggestive of wanting to see new Minister of Finance Maxwell Mkwezalamba who, unfortunately, was not in the room at the time.

The economist of international repute is one of the five new faces in President Joyce Banda’s third Cabinet choice since April 2012.

Seemingly congratulatory hugs spiced the clearly forced smiles on the many retained ministers after a reportedly hot Cabinet meeting at Chikoko Bay in Mangochi where they were told all have been fired.

This was the setting of the mood at Kamuzu Palace yesterday where the President had invited her newly reconstituted Cabinet for a swearing-in ceremony ahead of a brought-forward meeting of Parliament scheduled to debate the Capital Hill cash-gate scandal, among others.

Donning her creamy orange outfit, the President was in a stern but joking mood.

She seized the opportunity to deliver a warning to her new subordinates, possibly the last of her choice as she leads her People’s Party (PP) to her and the party’s first general elections race on May 20 2014.

Said the President: “My government has focused on healing the nation. There is urgent need to strengthen our financial management system. I want you to know that Malawians are waiting and are watching us.”

But the President placed a bigger load on the newly appointed Minister of Justice Fahad Assani in the fight against corruption that has rocked Capital Hill with civil servants being arrested with huge sums of cash whose source they cannot explain.

“I want you to re-look at our anti-corruption law and see if there is need to do something with that law so it can be more effective. We have a problem that is here with us and we must fight it. No business as usual,” she said.

She called on the entire Cabinet to be honest in the discharge of the duties and avoid a smear campaign against each other.

Three quarters of the President’s speech was full of jokes most of them based on realities beginning with the time when she was vice-president and member of DPP.

She said of Lucious Kanyumba, now Minister of Education: “Those of you who were in the DPP national executive, you will remember that it was Dr. Kanyumba who moved a motion that ‘before we start this meeting, this woman should get out’.”

“God is really wonderful that we can now sit and work together,” she said.

She also poked fun of the kind of phones she received from various ministers after she fired the Cabinet last Thursday.

Said Banda: “I wish to report that in a week when we had no Cabinet, I got interesting phone calls. First was from Halima Daudi who was outside and phoned me to say ‘I am back and I thought you should know that I am now at Lumbadzi’. I said I know, don’t forget you are fired, so there is no need to report.

“Then, Honourable Sidik Mia was going to Harare [Zimbabwe] for his late father-in-law’s memorial then he said ‘Your Excellency, I thought you should know that I will be away’, I said no need, remember you are fired.”