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The National Assembly has voted ‘no’ to amend the Act on the powers to appointment the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director General and his Deputy from President to the National Assembly for the interest of the bureau's independence.
Lilongwe South West, Peter Chakhwantha presented a drafted amendment of Section 5 (1) of the Corrupt Practices Act in which he was proposing that the appointment of both the Director and Deputy Director of ACB be done by the Public Appointments Committee of Parliament based on merit and through an open recruitment process and that the Director be reporting and answerable to Parliament through the Public appointments Committee.
During the roll call vote to determine if the House adopts the amendment following divisions of votes, saw Government defeating opposition with 82 votes to 75 votes and there were 34 absentees.
“Honorable members, this means that we can not continue with other processes of the bill. Therefore, the bill Amendment has been defeated” announced Richard Msowoya Speaker of the National Assembly just after the mover, Chakhwantha reported that his motion has been shutdown
The drafted amendment came in the House today after the House some few weeks ago had adopted the amendment motion following a victory of 75 to 67 votes by Opposition during the division to determine if the mover of the motion, Chakhwantha, should be allowed to wind up the motion and ask the House to adopt it.
But but this time around, the defeat has greatly disappointed the Opposition as Leader of Opposition reacted immediately the House was suspended for lunch break
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| Chakwera shaking hands with President Mutharika |
“We thought we Malawians, will be the winners but we have been denied that” reacts Leader of Opposition Lazarus Chakwera in an interview further accusing Government of being “Chameleons” for changing their mind on fight against corruption as attested in this motion
While stating that their side does not consider this as a defeat, Chakwera said the battle will rage on with other motions and they will keep on fighting by bring more motions on various legislations in the House.
“They have been sitting on pieces of legislations that the Law Commission went around this country consulting and they do not want to bring it because they are afraid that the law will come after them but the long arm of the law will still come after them." He said
"It is not true that as a nation we should be telling Malawians this is what we will do if you vote for us and then when we are voted in, we decide to do the different. The reforms that they are championing have actually saying this is part of what they will do, and then to come back today and say we are not ready to do that, this country is not ready to fight corruption” said Chakwera
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| Lunguzi |
Equally, Dedza East legislature, Juliana Lunguzi had expressed her disapointment in the House just after the motion was defeated
“This being the House of records I want to register my disappointment that the country from the Government side has chosen to say yes to corruption” she lamented but this attracted boos from Government legislatures who also in their shouts, ordered her to resume her sit honorably
When tempers flared up following the boos, speaker, Richard Msowoya tried to put things to rest.
“The core processes of the bill has gone through, and as usual in any context one side wins the other side loses. And this has been the process if there was point in the process of the bill where you thought something procedurally went wrong you have the right to point it out but let’s not perpetrate this kind of discussion and scoring political points” said Msowoya
Throughout the general debate of the bill Government side continued to oppose the amendment of the section and it also defeated the Opposition by 76 to 73 votes during the division voting to determine if the House needed to curtail the debate to allow Chakhwantha to wind up the debate and propose that the House should adopt the drafted amendment bill.
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