Parliament: Empty talk show
It was clear from the word go that the 50th Session of Parliament would be the usual kindergatten talk show the House has been.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators rolled the curtains as they made their entry onto the drama stage clad in sack-cloth attire. Mind you, unlike the biblical Job, they forgot to pour ashes on their faces and bodies to show that they were really sorrowful about the Malawi situation right now.
The few DPP legislators who put on the sack-cloth garbs thought that Speaker Catherine Gotani-Hara would kick them out for defying the parliamentary dress code. That is why they came up with that argument the South African Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) propel, that the colonial house rules make it mandatory for suits, without specifying what type of suits. The EFF chose worksuits.
Unlike the EFF, here we found DPP members of Parliament in self-indulgent sacks they would never wear again. What that poor show relieved the poor on the street of their poverty, only they can explain. It all backfired when Gotani-Hara did not play their game.
Then came President Lazarus Chakwera to present his State of the Nation address. I daresay, this has been a season of Sonas with American Joe Biden, South African Cyril Ramaphosa and even the Russian czar Vladmir Putin addressing their people in recent times. So, it must be set on record that these are not just mere shows of rhetoric.
As usual, Chakwera displayed what he is best known for: The jive talker. Much of what he said, he has always said before. Much as he accepted the economy was in bad shape, he said nothing about his plans to turn that around.
While he indicated there would be changes in the Agricultural Inputs Programme (AIP), he did not touch what really happened for Malawi to attempt purchasing fertiliser from a butchery. He did not tell us when the money is going to be recovered and when those responsible will be taken to book. For that matter, we expected an explanation on why beneficiaries in the Centre got enough supplies before their counterparts in the South who get the rains first are still struggling to get the fertiliser. Is this not mechanised hunger?
When he said, once more and for the second time, that his government was serious about fighting corruption, there was absolutely no mention that he had failed to track down who ordered the arrest of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director general Martha Chizuma in very queer and violent circumstances. The President was, indeed, speaking but said close to nothing on corruption as he did not even tell us who recorded Chizuma, and why.
No word from His Excellency on the Bridging Foundation’s $6.7 billion grant. That was anticipated, given that the President may not have really known what was going on about this grant. He usually does not know much about what is going on around him, in his own words.
But then the kindergatten talk show was even evident as the President spoke, with unnecessary cat calls and boos. The worst of this came when Leader of Opposition Kondwani Nankhumwa interrupted the Sona to request for a bottle of water. Imagine!
However, Nankhumwa was to have a taste of his own medicine when he delivered his response. Parlimentarians from the government side interrupted his speech a number of times. His was a good speech just because they are in the opposition, where the ruling party gaffes are seen clearly as the smallest speck on snow.
In the end, the parliamentarians give blatant lies when they say they are speaking for the constituents they represent. They speak for themselves, their stomachs and their masters. It has always been their tradition.
Look at some of the Bills passed previously which Chakwera has assented to. The raising of the female child’s age in the Penal Code was welcome to align it to the Constitutional working definition. But then, where does that leave the boys? Where a 17-year-old girl coaxes a 15-year-old boy to bed, why should only the boy be arrested for the consensual sex? Did the MPs scrutinise that irony?
Then there is that beat about the Protected Names, Symbols and Emblems Act, what is the hullaballoo about the national flag?
As they deliberate, you will only hear political bickering about serious issues like the hunger situation. It is a mere talk show, with no solutions in sight.
