Malawi: DPP Leadership Wrangles Derail Parliament's Public Accounts Committee Business

15 September 2022
Nyasa Times (Leeds)
By Owen Khamula

Parliament's influential and powerful committee, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is failing to meet due to leadership wrangles in the opposition Democractic Progressive Party (DPP), triggering concerns of failure by parliament for checks and balances on government.

The Committee has not met for three weeks as two DPP factions have taken each other to court over the committee leadership.

This follows a court battle between Shadric Namalomba who is on Professor Peter Mutharika faction and was Chairperson for the committee and Zomba Chisi legislator Mark Botomani who is on Kondwani Nankhumwa faction and was recently elected Chairperson of the committee.

Namalomba obtained a court injunction stopping the Speaker of the National Assembly from recognizing Botomani as Chairperson and stopping him from performing his duties.

Though the Attorney General Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda has moved to challenge the injunction obtained by Namalomba.

Parliament has since postponed indefinitely all PAC meetings.

Namalomba has faulted the Speaker for disregarding a court order that reinstated him on the position of Chairperson.

He has since described what is happening as sad saying PAC was supposed to meet Secretary to President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba but this has failed due to the leadership battle.

Ian Mwenye, Parliament spokespersons said he cannot comment on the matter since it is in court.

Read the original article on Nyasa Times.

Tagged:
Copyright © 2022 Nyasa Times. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.

AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.