Nankhumwa DPP faction excels

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators aligned to embattled Leader of Opposition in Parliament Kondwani Nankhumwa have taken charge of most of the influential House committees, including Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Following the expiry of the tenure of office for Mangochi South West legislator Shadric Namalomba, who is on president Peter Mutharika’s side, DPP replaced him with Zomba Chisi member of Parliament (MP) Mark Botomani as PAC chairperson.

There are no changes in the leadership of other key constitutional committees as Lilongwe South MP Peter Dimba (Malawi Congress Party-MCP) was retained as Legal Affairs Committee chairperson as did Nsanje Lalanje MP Gladys Ganda at the helm of the Budget and Finance Committee and Mwanza West legislator Joyce Chitsulo in the Public Appointments Committee.

Namalomba, who did not seek re-election, has further been relegated to the backbenchers from the opposition front bench.

Botomani went in unopposed and said in an interview on Tuesday that he was ready to serve in his new role.

He said during his time, he will push for the speedy recruitment of the substantive Auditor General which has remained vacant for at least two years.

Said Botomani: “Expectations and stakes are very high and the first issue on my agenda as chairperson is to ensure that I liaise with the relevant stakeholders, primarily the appointing authority through the Ministry of Finance to ensure that the appointment of the Auditor General is expedited, as you know that the country has stayed for two years without the Auditor General.”

He said despite government working with the acting Auditor General, there are still some functions that need a substantive office holder to operate.

Botomani said: “Overall, we have so many audit queries in ministries departments and agencies [MDAs] and these will be priotised and we have also given ourselves a roadmap that will help us to achieve what we aim.”

He said PAC will soon be meeting the Secretary to the President and Cabinet, who oversees all the MDAs, to bring to her attention outstanding issues observed by the committee.

In a statement on Tuesday, Namalomba congratulated his successor and thanked Parliament Secretariat staff for the support rendered to him during the time he served as chairperson.

He said: “I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to His Excellency Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika, the former president of the Republic of Malawi, and president of DPP and my fellow MPs for bestowing me the opportunity to serve my country in one of the most powerful committees in Parliament, the Public Accounts Committee for two years until today [on Tuesday] due to the reshuffle of parliamentary committee, by the current leadership of opposition in Parliament.

“Today, I would like to congratulate Honourable Mark Botomani, for being elected as chaiperson of Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.”

Namalomba had a rough ride as PAC chair with some MPs from both sides of the House at one point pushing for his ouster, including an attempted impeachment for bashing the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for allegedly persecuting Mutharika.

At that time, ACB wanted to interview Mutharika on his role on the issue to do with abuse of his duty-free privileges by third parties who imported cement from Zambia.

Nankhumwa, who is estranged DPP vice-president for the South, is not officially recognised by his party’s leadership as Leader of Opposition in Parliament. The leadership has twice attempted to replace him. However, court interventions have kept him in office.

Recently, Nankhumwa appointed a shadow Cabinet whose members automatically became apparent spokespersons on various matters in Parliament but the party disowned the Cabinet which saw some key party legislators rejecting their appointments.

Due to the shadow Cabinet appointment, Nankhumwa came up with a new seating arrangement where shadow Cabinet ministers were accorded front seats while mere members such as Namalomba were pushed to seat 100.

This did not please Namalomba who sought a court injunction to sustain his seat number 25 in the chamber.