House Adjourns Sine Die With Appraisal From Both Sides

The Malawi National Assembly adjourns Sine Die this afternoon with high appraise by all sides of the house pertaining to the level of debate in the house.

Leader of House Honorable Francis Lazaro Kasaila in his adjournment motion speech thanked all members for the fruitful deliberations and level of behavior shown in the house.

"This has been a big improvement from last meeting considering the fact that this has just been our second meeting after the elections and considering the fact also that most members this is their first time to be in the chamber I believe that as we are going on the debate will be excellent"

The house has since the time of adjournment consider and pass 7 bills and 4 bills other remaining bills will come in the next sitting, discussed on 6 Ministerial Statements, answered 147 Questions on Notices out of 222 Questions and that the house received 2 petitions and that some will be discussed on during the next sitting.

The Leader of opposition Dr. Lazarus Chakwera said together with other Committees of National Assembly will make some follow-ups on what the house has agreed in this sitting

"I believe this meeting has been great and can be greater. But it is something that we have started from. With new standing orders that require that the Budget be scrutinized by the Parliamentary Committee's which were grouped in clusters, that interaction alone helped in the scrutiny of the budget because we had technocrats as well as parliamentarians working together looking at that.

As well as the level of debate as acknowledged by Government side was notch higher and we feel that we can truly have confidence that Malawians should in turn have confidence in their Parliament that whenever a budget is passed or bill is passed it is for the good of the nation."

He said on its part as opposition side, they are ready to follow up and track progress of implementation of the just passed Budget. He said the monitoring of budget will be easy because there are structures already in place, Assurance Parliamentary Committee as well as taking advantage of chairmanship positions that opposition has.

And Leader of Peoples Party PP honorable Uladi Mussa emphasized that government must be serious on tackling issue of Cashgate and abandon Quota system

"The sitting has been very fruitful enough because we came for budget which we have passed. As PP we are very glad with the passing of the budget.

But the shortfalls were failure to discuss the K92 billon audit query and some of the ministerial statements were attacking previous Government, instead of correcting mistakes they are continuing to say this Government was doing this and we will continue with that problem."

The House transacted number of items including the Budget and Cancer Centre bill. Members are expected to be meeting in their committee meetings to make follow ups on some of the promises.