12/07/2012
3rd July 2012
Her Excellency Joyce Banda’s “Expensive” Section 65
Chipani Cha Pfuko finds the statement made by the President, Her Excellency Joyce Banda rather worrying to say the least. Is it not only less than three months ago when she took an oath of office declaring she will uphold the Malawi republican constitution.
We all recall then, that there were no exceptions coming from how costly it could be to enforce some of the sections; For example, Section 65.
Democratically and constitutionally, there is what is called, separation of powers between the four estates of the State, the Executive, The Legislature and, The Judiciary and, the constitution provides for equal and separate status of the three branches of government , isn’t the statement made by the President tantamount to the Executive interfering with the legislature? Should the speaker not declare any deserving seat vacant, would it not look like his failure has been influenced by the Executive because of statements like the one before us now?
Since the ship-jumping started in April this year most of these members of parliament have not stopped bashing our ears that their constituents and chiefs had been consulted and that they, in turn, had encouraged them to join the new ruling party (PP); why then does it seem that they seem to lack courage when it comes to facing the voters and chiefs whom they claimed they had consulted? Chipani Cha Pfuko is of the opinion that the only way to protect our nascent democracy is by giving back power to the people, the voters who currently have got none. The only power a Malawi voter has is to vote an MP into parliament. The voter has got no power to recall his/her Member of Parliament. In other words, an MP can decide to live outside the country after winning the seat; only appear when Parliament is meeting, collect his/her allowances and salary for the entire five year term and there is no recource what so ever from the constituents – that, to CCP is hardly democracy.
This is why; we at Chipani Cha Pfuko find the statement made by our President Her Excellency Joyce Banda in Mangochi lacking in the ideals of how our embryonic democracy should be working. Besides, honestly, those donors who were unhappy with Bingu’s administration had cited the late President’s disregard of constitutional order as one reason why Malawi had become a pariah in the eyes of almost all our co-operating partners. Chipani Cha Pfuko does not see a situation where donors would fail to fund us for trying to uphold the republican constitution; certainly not!
With the Kwacha devaluation, small amounts of MWK are beginning to look like phone numbers; the required MWK4.6 Billion is actually around only US$16million! Now to think the Americans, the British, the French, the Germans, the Swedish, the Norwegians, the South Africans, the Danish etc etc. We have just listed six potential donors here; if they were to split the US$16 Million – it would only come up to US$2million each! The President would have well over 14 million Malawians our co-operating partners would not be able to manage this? Madam President, your argument on this matter is lacking in strength!
To link by-elections expenditure to civil servants’ future salary increases and, money the country will need for maize later in the year to the poor rains which has caused the country to have low maize harvest, is to us at Chipani Cha Pfuko, simply, unwarranted scare-mongering!
To government advisors we say the following; look at the implementation of Section 65 by the Speaker as a chance for the ruling party to show the people of Malawi how popular they have become in the last three month; please do not miss this huge political opportunity………Ssshhhhh! I hear a voice from the Chair….. Did the Speaker say he has a ruling to make? Well, perhaps I am hearing things?!
The Author of this article is Right Honourable Davies Chester Katsonga, Interim President of Chipani Cha Pfuko & Former Speaker of Parliament.
