Leader of House in the National Assembly says the House will debate the Access to Information bill within the remaining two days sitting of this Meeting of the National Assembly.
Francis Kasaila made assurance in an interview on Wednesday evening after the House adjourned early to allow members to prepare for number of bills that are appearing on the Order Paper.
Kasaila said among the bills that are to be discussed on Thursday and Friday before the House rise sine die includes Access to Information bill which has been long awaited by the media and all Malawians.
“The bills are quite many, but also at the same time we have Access to Information bill” confirmed Kasaila
“All those we would want to process them and for sure most of them would be required to go through committees because that is where members would consult relevant stakeholders and get their views… and there after we will have a consensus and proceed with the processing when we meet again around in May.”
He however, failed to divulge more if the bill will be the first item on the Government business on Thursday but has confirmed that between Thursday and Friday the bill will be among the list of Bills that will be presented in the House.
“It will come as I said between tomorrow and Friday, it may not be necessarily be second (after Land Bills) because it depends on whether the spokespersons will be ready tomorrow for that. We will try and bring in those that are ready quickly and bring those bills on the floor, deal with them and proceed” he said
The National Assembly on Wednesday evening was adjourned early as the Leader of House wanted members to prepare for Fourteen bills that are appearing on order paper so that House adjourns sine die on Friday with more bills tackled.
“Honorable Deputy Speaker, since the House is rising this Friday I berg to move that the House adjourns early to allow members to prepare for the bills” moved Leader of House, Francis Kasaila
Kasaila in his request to the Second Deputy Speaker, Clement Chiwaya, observed that there is a backlog of bills that needs to be tackled before the House rises on Friday.
The business items of the House accumulated following two sitting days the House failed to meet as members went to attend the funeral of one of their legislatures from Mchinji. Kasaila defended the early adjournment saying for the sake of progress, it was necessary to allow members to prepare for the bills as programme for the next two days will be tight therefore members need to consult widely on the bills so that together with their party spokespersons they should participate.
Bills appearing on the order paper are
- Electronic Transactions (Parliamentary Committee on Media, Information and Communications to present a Report on the Bill.)
- Payment Systems (The Budget Committee in the day already presented a report on the bill)
- Access to Information
- Land bill
- Physical Planning
- Forestry (Amendment)
- Malawi Housing Corporation (Amendment N.2)
- Land Survey
- Registered Land (Amendment)
- Public Roads (Amendment)
- Customary Land
- Lands Acquisition
- Local Government (Amendment)
- International Fund for Agricultural Development (Programme for Rural Irrigation Development) Loan (Authorisation)
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