Laws for sale

 Former as well as sitting members of Parliament (MPs) have broken their silence and confirmed claims that legislators receive financial inducements to pass or reject Bills in the House.

The sentiments by the MPs come after three of them, including legislator for Blantyre City South East MP Sameer Suleman, former Mulanje South legislator Bon Kalindo and former Dowa West MP Alexander Kusamba-Dzonzi publicly made the allegations in exclusive interviews with media houses.

Suleman and Kalindo spoke in separate interviews this year on Zodiak and Times TV, respectively while Kusamba-Dzonzi was interviewed by our sister newspaper The Nation in 2018 after tabling the Financial Services (Amendment) Bill as a private member’s motion.

Suleman said he has evidence that MPs receive money to push government agenda in Parliament. But he claimed he had never benefitted from such offers.

On the other hand, Kalindo said Parliament is the most corrupt institution in the country and that MPs are offered money to influence the passing of Bills in the House.

Weekend Nation has spoken with nine more MPs from both opposition and government benches who shed more light on the secret practice and said the issue of money changing hands at Parliament is deep-rooted and is a long-standing tradition, spanning the last three decades.

While eight of them spoke on strict condition of anonymity, Mulanje South West legislator George Chaponda, who is also Leader of the Opposition in the House, confirmed the practice on record in an interview last week.

He said he was aware of one occasion, during debate on the Cannabis Regulation (Amendment) Bill in February 2020, when MPs were given ‘hefty’ allowances as transport refund during a sensitisation meeting in Lilongwe. The meeting was organised by the Cannabis Regulatory Authority.

Chaponda, who has been an MP for 20 years and a Cabinet minister for 13 years as well as Leader of the House, said he could not mention the amount received because he did not attend the meeting.

But our sources corroborated that the MPs got K1 million each at the end of the meeting held at a hotel in the capital. Two sitting MPs, one from Kasungu and the other from Zomba, who attended the meeting, confirmed receiving K1 million each.

In a separate interview this week, former ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chief whip Jappie Mhango acknowledged that rumours of MPs pocketing money to push government business are rife but that hard evidence is scarce.

MCP chief whip Jacob Hara said: “Most MPs are mature enough to vote with a sober conscience. [But] some people confuse lobbying with vote buying.”

On his part, People’s Party (PP) chief whip Ackson Kalaile Banda echoed Hara’s sentiments, saying it all goes down to the individual MP whether or not fuel reimbursements or other favours they receive can influence one’s voting pattern in the House.

Kusamba-Dzonzi made headlines in 2018 when he claimed that he was offered K200 million by an unnamed local commercial bank to drop the Financial Services (Amendment) Bill, also known as Interest Capping Bill, which proposes a new Section 3(a) in the Act setting a maximum amount as interest that can be recovered from a borrowed amount.

When Weekend Nation contacted him recently, the former MCP lawmaker said the Bill challenged industry captains in the financial sector to stop them from getting super normal profits from their customers and trading with government through Treasury bills which crowd out the private sector from accessing loans from the commercial banks.

He added that the other problem was the business-as-usual approach by most politicians and business captains who were too scared to support the Bill to become a law because they have no desire to disrupt their comfort zones.

In earlier interviews, Bankers Association of Malawi (BAM) warned of far-reaching consequences to the economy once interest rates are capped through the Financial Services Act (Amendment) Bill.

Several MPs we spoke to confirmed that they were sponsored to frustrate the passing of a Bill by either voting against it, like in the case of the Financial Services Act (Amendment) Bill or to support it as in the Cannabis Bill.

Former MCP Kasungu West Alex Major lawmaker said: “I was an MP between 2014 and 2019. We were being offered money and other favours in exchange for supporting or opposing specific legislation.”

According to him, the interested party or the stakeholder behind the Bill is mostly the one that splashes money.

Major said during his time in the House, the majority of MPs received such offers and that just a handful declined and or did not benefit.

BAM executive director Lyness Nkungula had not responded to our questionnaire for her organisation’s comment as we went to press yesterday.

A former Cabinet minister also claimed that some MPs are offered money to be absent from the House to reduce their party’s numbers during voting.

He said: “For instance, the government side may not have the majority, so they can approach at least 12 or 15 MPs not to come to Parliament so that when time for voting comes, the opposition is weakened.”

One MP, from the Southern Region, said: “It’s an open secret. We do receive envelopes filled with cash. We are promised foreign trips and even jobs for our family members. This is done to secure our loyalty during crucial votes.”

According to the lawmakers, the assertions extend beyond financial inducements and that some vocal MPs are strategically sent abroad to attend meetings when contentious Bills are to be tabled in the House.

They claim that by keeping these influential voices away, ruling parties aim to tip the scales in their favour.

Said another MP from the Northern Region: “It’s like a game of chess. They move us around the board tactically. When a Bill threatens the ruling party’s interests, suddenly we find ourselves on an all-expenses-paid for trip to a conference overseas.”

The MPs also claim that financial rewards are tied to specific parliamentary events, saying the only way to stop the rot at Parliament is by exposing such hushed transactions.

For instance, one lawmaker disclosed that when the 2024/25 National Budget was passed, all MPs were invited to a dinner at a hotel in Lilongwe where each of them allegedly received K400 000 as an appreciation for passing the budget.

Additionally, a lawmaker from the Eastern Region alleged that ahead of the President’s address to Parliament, especially during the State of the Nation Address (Sona), certain vocal MPs are given money to ensure they behave during the session.

Said the MP: “You may have noticed that during Sona, some members behave and don’t shout or misbehave in the chamber like other times, this is because they are paid to behave and control other unruly members.’’

We also spoke to three MPs from the Central Region who corroborated that during the debate on Land Bills in 2016, a good number of MPs from the opposition side received millions to push for the passing of the Bills.

One of the MPs explained that they were taken on a tour around the country and to estates and accommodated in hotels and paid hefty allowances.

Claimed another MP: “At the end of the trip, a senior government official at the time was sent to the UK for a holiday for a month for a job well done.”

Commenting on the issue, the National Alliance against Corruption chairperson Moses Mkandawire observed that without effective oversight mechanisms, there can never be accountability, and without accountability the quality of governance at all levels deteriorates.

According to him, Parliament has lost its moral campus and no wonder corruption is thriving.

Said Mkandawire: “We are not even ashamed that politics is slowly becoming so commercialised largely because of some of such developments. The reverse can only be done when we have strong characters at parliamentary level. We need MPs that have nothing to lose but protect the little resources meant for public good,

“Above all, let them eject all those that have shown some level of greed, betrayal and dishonesty in 2025. The electorate should show that political power and legal authority to govern is actually with them and, therefore, derives from them.”

On his part, Social Accountability and Transparency executive director Willy Kambwandira said it is very unfortunate that MPs behave in very unpredictable ways where money is involved.

He said Kambwandira: “It is time our MPs lived by some standards and principles driven by the virtue of common good. Malawians must be careful and ensure that they value people of integrity and vote them into power. Malawians at all levels must desist from the culture of hand-outs as it breeds corrupt leaders.”