By Falles Kamanga
BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-Malawi’s democracy is under siege considering weak and unproductive of opposition parties including Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), United Democratic Front (UDF) and independent legislators in Malawi Parliament for seriously failing to scrutinize President Lazarus Chakwera’s Tonse Alliance administration bills, budgets to meet Malawians expectations.
Opposition Parties must always vigilant to guard against public resources abuses but the notion is different as are weak, divided with power hungry and personal interests to fill their pockets for their families leaving Malawians with nothing.
The main opposition DPP which is in leadership crisis has also paralyzed its oversight role in Parliament that Chakwera’s Tonse block can do anything to appease themselves against the will of Malawians.
Laws, national budgets, loan authorization bills just pass in Parliament without scrutiny due to opposition leader incompetent.
For instance, on April 6, 2023 Chakwera Tonse block through Finance Minister Sosten Gwengwe, bulldozed Parliament with authorization Bill Number 9 of 2023 allowing government to borrow MK105 billion on behalf of Khato Civils Limited to finance Salima-Lilongwe water project.
The funds are meant to finance the abstraction and treatment of water from Lake Malawi at Lifuwu in Salima and transportation of the treated water through a 112 kilometre transmission pipeline to Lilongwe City under the Lake Malawi Water Supply Project.
Despite grey issues in the bill, Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Parliament Kondwani Nankhumwa who is also DPP vice president in the southern region failed to stand firm against the bill.
Nankhumwa failed also to command opposition block in Parliament against the bill but instead allowed it to pass until passionate civil right group, Forum for National Development (FND) obtained court injunction restraining two commercial banks, NBS Bank plc and National Bank of Malawi plc, from providing funds amounting to MK105 billion to Khato Civils towards the project.
Despite Nankhumwa’s defensive that he raised matters on the bill before it was passed, Malawians can not take him seriously.
Nankhumwa was quoted in the media as saying: “The Bill was circulated electronically at 9.40 am. Using its numerical strength, the government side moved a motion for the production of a supplementary order, which was passed. Consequently, the Bill was brought on the floor and got passed the same day amid protests from the opposition. How would members deliberate on a financial Bill that had just been circulated?”
Even DPP spokesperson on Finance, Ralph Jooma supported the bill without scrutiny.
“We also raised an issue if this money will cover the whole project, but we got a response from Minister that this will only cover 30% of the Project,” said Jooma.
On the need for properly scrutiny of money bills, Jooma expressed concern over government’s behavior to bring bills in the house without looking referring the some bill to relevant Committees for further consideration.“Before we authorise as members of Parliament we are suppose to look into it, whether to express satisfaction or not,” be observed.
Both Nankhumwa and Jooma failed the nation to raised serious issues in the bill including initial MK25 billion pay out made to Khato Civils, the change of project designed to be ran by Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) and why Tonse administration wanted to borrow money on behalf of the private company against it’s original project design that the contractor which is Khato could source funding.
Simbi Phiri owns Khato Civils Limited. Phiri however has been boasting to have sponsored political parties and Members of Parliament (MPs) for both 2019 general elections and 2020 Presidential polls.
Is this the reason Nankhumwa and entire opposition block failed to scrutinize the bill as a pay back to Simbi Phiri as a good Samaritan? Is this also a reason for Chakwera Tonse block and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) MPs supported the bill without any overview on the bill as pay back to the master?
Nankhumwa as LoP failed big time to analyse the bill until FND took the matter to court. There must be full accountability for this money.
FND has picked up a good fight. This money, which belongs to Malawians, must be fully accounted for before more is poured into this project.
This issue exposes how, incompetent and compromised Nankhumwa is as LoP in Parliament. Nankhumwa is always silent on corrupt deals that benefits him
For instance, the same happened on MK6.2 billion COVID-19 fraud as it took register copy to expose LoP Nankhumwa benefiting from the stolen money while all along he lamented innocence until he was exposed and forced to refund.
What Nankhumwa does in Parliament is spending hours rebuking Chakwera’s sugarcoating State of National Address (SONA) to score political points not beneficial to Malawians.
Malawians must carefully scrutinize Nankhumwa’s leadership ability as he plans to seek power attainment in opposition DPP ahead of 2025 polls.
Malawians are tired and sick with noisy makers, political rhetoric with lip services whose interests are to amass power, wealth for themselves, friends and family members.
Malawi needs competent, skillful and insightful leadership both in opposition and governing block for health democratic dispersion attained in 1994.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are those of the author not necessarily of The Maravi Post or Editor
