BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-Sunduzwayo Madise has officially stepped down as Chairperson of the Malawi National Council of Sports (MNCS), bringing an end to his tenure at the helm of the country’s sports regulatory body.
In a statement issued today, Madise said his decision follows recent changes introduced by the government, which have prompted a new direction for the council.
He expressed deep gratitude to the government and relevant stakeholders for entrusting him with the responsibility of leading the board over the past years.
“This decision comes after careful reflection. I am thankful to the authorities for the confidence they showed in me and for giving me the opportunity to serve the sporting fraternity of Malawi. It has been an honor to contribute to the growth and governance of sports in the country,” Madise said.
During his tenure, Madise played a significant role in championing reforms aimed at improving transparency and accountability within sports organizations.
He also pushed for the development of grassroots programs to nurture young talent and promoted the diversification of sports disciplines beyond football and netball.
According to information that MaraviPost Sports Desk gathered his resignation paves the way for the government to appoint a new chairperson who will align with the administration’s current vision for the sports sector.
The Ministry of Youth and Sports is expected to announce a replacement in the coming weeks.
Madise’s departure comes at a crucial time when Malawi is preparing for several major sporting events including qualifiers for international competitions and the continued implementation of sports infrastructure projects nationwide.
BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-The Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Malawi (UNIMA), Sunduzwayo Madise, has called on the government to consider reducing taxes on smartphones to make them more accessible to students for educational purposes.
He made the remarks on Monday at UNIMA in Zomba during a workshop promoting online learning, which also featured the Malawi Institute of Education (MIE).
Madise noted that the high cost of smartphones is a major barrier to access for many students.
He gave examples of how students in remote areas such as Nthalire in Chitipa, Nyezelera in Phalombe, Marka in Nsanje, and other distant regions could benefit from online learning from their homes if they had access to smartphones.
“UNIMA is ready to train lecturers in online teaching methodologies,” said Madise.
On his part,Director of Higher Education in the Ministry of Higher Education, Zizwa Msukuma, said the ministry is committed to facilitating access to education through modern online technologies.
Humble C Bondo elected University of Malawi Students Union President
Humble C Bondo elected University of Malawi Students Union President
The University of Malawi student body on Friday elected Humble C.S Bondo, a third-year public administration scholar from the School of Law, Economics, and Governance, as President of the Students Representative Council (SRC), formerly the Students Union of Chancellor College (SUCC).
Bondo received 1543 votes in the closely contested race representing 52.7%, while Ekari Orama Mathuka received 1385 votes.
“We have elected him because we feel he has what it takes to address the pressing challenges confronting University of Malawi students.”
“We want the academic calendar to be fixed. As it stands, we will be doing one semester in one year thereby spending about seven years doing a four-year degree programme. We find this insensitive, retrogressive, and outright failure by those entrusted with the administration of the university. Thousands of students led by President-elect Humble Bondo staged a protest to petition the Chancellor to intervene and we elected him on the understanding that he will push this agenda to our satisfaction.
“If he calls for another protest or vigil, students are more than willing to participate since we believe the current administration, led by Professor Sajidu and his deputy Sunduzwayo Madise, is incompetent, self-serving, retrogressive, and lacks foresight,” said one student, who spoke on condition of strict anonymity due to fear of repercussions.The student added:
‘All we want is two semesters per academic year, as has been the tradition, rather than one semester in one year. Whether we use online learning or blended learning to do this, as long as we have two semesters per academic year, that is fine with us,” the student continued.
Bondo became an instant student darling when he wrote a strongly worded letter to ESCOM Chief Executive Officer Kamkwamba Kumwenda requesting that he provides the university with a steady power line, stating that the university’s academic enterprise was being strangled by the constant black-outs.
“Since the day we learned about that letter, we noticed big changes in our teaching area, especially in our main library; power would go out for five minutes and then be restored immediately; a clear case that the message in that letter reached home,” the student said, adding that “all of this made us know that we have a leader in Humble C who is willing to take risks at a time when the administrators were surrendering to ESCOM’s mediocrity.”
All attempts to speak to President-elect Humble Bondo were futile as he did not pick up our phone. A brief web search of Bondo’s profile reveals that he is a well-known athlete in the country who made international news a few years ago when he defeated draught International Grandmaster Michael Semianiuk of Belarus in Bulgaria. Bondo is also a poet most known for his poem ‘Kudachema,’ in which he recorded the horrific events of the 20th July 2011 demonstrations, in which around 20 people died opposing the country’s economic mismanagement under late President Bingu Wa Mutharika.
Sunduzwayo Madise: Malawi National Sports Council board chair
BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—On Wednesday night Malawi leader Lazarus Chakwera approved a list of board of directors of 67 parastatal organizations and he has been praised for including professionals.
Of course governance expert Khumbo Munthali has described the appointments as “a combination of competence or expertise and reward for patronage,” but the fact is that public intellectuals and patriotic professionals have made it in the Boards.
On the list there is one rare gem in law, Sunduzwayo Madise. Dr. Madise is now Malawi National Council of Sports board chairperson. Those who were born after 2000 might be puzzled as to what criteria did the president use in appointing Madise, a legal scholar and Dean of Faculty of Law at the Chancellor College, a constituent college of the University of Malawi, to chair sport council?
Well, Madise was the Vice President of Football Association of Malawi (FAM) in the 2000. He is remembered for the persecution he faced at the hands of the same sports council he will be chairing for allegedly bribing referees.
Serious revelations had been made at a Blantyre Magistrate Court alleging that Madise had tried to bribe some match officials during a World Cup first qualifying round first leg match against Kenya in Blantyre in April, 2000.
The revelations had been made by the then acting Sports Council executive secretary George Jana when he testified in a case that the Madise suggested to the Council to bribe the officials.
Jana told a packed Blantyre principal magistrate’s courtroom that the former vice president of the FA took US$1,000 from the FA’s coffers for the alleged bribery.
Malawi won the match 2-0 and then drew the away leg 0-0 in Nairobi to reach the group stages of the qualifiers.
“It happens everywhere”
The executive secretary said in court he was surprised that the referees had demanded US$1,000 more than their regular fee of US$3,800, which usually covered their expenses.
Jana disclosed before Principal Resident Magistrate Sylvester Kalembera that when the council confronted Madise on the allegations of match bribes, the former vice president allegedly answered: ”If other countries were doing it, we could also do it.
“There was no problem in bribing the referees as it happens everywhere,” Madise is alleged to have said.
Jana said the Sports Council did not get any receipts for the US$1,000.
In the corruption case, Madise was accused of corruptly accepting 30,000 rand in cash (about US$3,700) and 2,833.75 rand in settlement of hotel bills from Global African Football (GAF) consultant Ian Riley.
Television rights
The Malawi Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) also investigate allegations that the monies were bribes, for the purposes of awarding television broadcasting rights for the Malawi v South Africa World Cup qualifier to GAF, instead of their rivals, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).
The SABC had complained to the Malawi government, saying it suspected foul play during the award of the contract.
Madise was arrested after the Anti-Corruption Bureau took up the matter and sent a team of investigators to South Africa.
He was subsequently suspended form the FA executive and later got fired.
But Madise denied the corruption charges.
This was the first high level corruption case involving a senior sports official in Malawi.
He was tried, convicted and slapped with a suspended sentence.
Sundu’s next step
Mzati Mkolokosa, the one who has been fired yesterday from Ministry of Information, in one of his articles in 2015 argues that Sundu rose again, in a bigger way than before, for after the fall he enrolled to study law at Chanco and earned himself an LLB. His academic performance earned him a teaching post in the Faculty of Law at the institution. He went on to study for an LLM and he is now a PhD holder and the dean of faculty.
Mzati thinks Sundu was not really in the wrong but his popularity in sports fraternity was his enemy. According to Mzati, Sundu appeared in the media more than any other official at FAM then because he was friendly and, therefore, media friendly.
That’s about Dr. Sundu the new board chair of the Malawi National Sports Council. After a fall he rose with much energy and he is still resisting the force of gravity.
His life is indeed a classroom as Mzati Mkolokosa put it.
BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—Legal expert Sunduzwayo Madise has questioned the legality of the suspension of the voter registration exercise conducted by Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) in some selected districts in readiness for the fresh election.
The special cabinet on covid-19 has today announced suspension of the registration exercise in the wake of revelations that the country has recorded three new cases of Covid-19 bringing the total number to eight.
However, Madise in his post on social media has indicated that the cabinet taskforce has no any legal mandate to suspend the exercise.
“I hear that the Cabinet taskforce on Covid-19 has [just] announced suspension of the voter registration exercise by the Electoral Commission (EC)? Does this taskforce have the power to suspend the registration exercise? Under what legal authority?,” queried Madise.
“The decision to suspend the voting registration exercise is reasonable in the circumstances of the Covid 19 pandemnic, even welcome. However, in my view, the wrong institution has made the’order considering further that the fresh election is court-sanction with specific ancillary orders. The EC (electoral commission) should have made that decision. Even in times of pandemic, the rule of law must prevail,” he added.
Before Madise’s reaction to the suspension, one of the legal commentators on social media LordDenning QB commended the move but also questioned its legality saying the order might have come from the institution that has no such powers.
“The Cancellation of voter registration exercise (its being alleged that it has been cancelled) is long overdue and was so necessary. The exercise was capable of transmitting the pandemic to the rural dwell ants that lack every capacity to withstand it.
“However, has the cancellation (if indeed it has happened) followed the due process or has it been done under some unavailable powers in a certain authority? I believe it has not been done ultra vires but in strict adherence to applicable procedure or law. Otherwise, this is what Justice Kenyatta Nyirenda would discharge his anger for,” wrote LordDenning QB on his facebook page.
Mutharika refusal to assent electoral bills is lawful , says Dean Sunduzwayo Madise
Malawi President actions who waited the Maximum 21 days to reject the election bills hastily approved in Parliament per directive from the 5 Concourt judges were 100% lawful according to Sunduzwayo Madise, Dean of the Faculty of Law at Chancellor College—a constituent college of the University of Malawi
Madise, who is also commissioner of the Malawi Human Rights
Commission (MHRC), states that the law gives the President the power to either
assent or withhold his assent.
He said if the President withholds his assent, he must give
reasons and forward them to the Speaker.
“Parliament can then debate the Bills again, if it desires,
but can only do so after 21 days.
If the law makers decide not to pass the bills again then
questions remain as to what will be the outcome of the ConCourt Judgement that
did not take these factors and constitutional questions into account.
The 500-page ConCourt judgement seemingly is being overtaken
by the Malawi Constitution leaving Malawians more divided than before the
ill-advised judiciary decided to put the case on the calendar.
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