First Deputy Speaker Victor Musowa has urged members of Parliament (MPs) to use parliamentary training programmes to sharpen their legislative, analytical and oversight skills.
Speaking in Lilongwe yesterday when he opened the fourth and final cohort of the Parliamentary Training Programme, he said MPs need a sound understanding of legislative processes, technology and law-making to meet public expectations.
Musowa said Parliament should be a forum for informed debate, where MPs focus on development issues and scrutinise government projects.
“The world out there is looking at a legislator who walks into the chamber with enough knowledge on technology, enough knowledge on legislative processes, enough knowledge on the creation of the law,” he said.
Musowa urged MPs to question disparities in costs of similar projects, saying effective scrutiny requires adequate information and skills.
“For us to deliberate to that level, we need information, we need ideas, we need skills and that is why we are here, back to class to learn,” he said.
Musowa said Parliament had completed almost half of the work scheduled for the current period and is expected to have eight reports on various institutions ready when the House resumes sitting on November 9.
“Come next sitting of Parliament, we are going to have reports of all the areas, even reports from institutions that people don’t know that we are already consulting them,” he said.
Malawi School of Government Kanengo Campus director Christine Siame said the training was essential in equipping MPs with the knowledge and competencies needed to discharge their responsibilities.
“If they don’t know what they are supposed to be doing, certainly it will be a problem. It will be a challenge even for the development of our nation,” she said.
The training programme dates back to the early 1990s and seeks to build MPs’ capacity to improve debate and decision-making in the House and strengthen democratic governance.
