Malawi Churches Say No To Abortion, Same Sex Marriage: Petition Parliament

Thousands of Christians, Muslims, Rastafarians and others from various denominations have held national wide peaceful march this Thursday asking the Malawi National Assembly to throw off proposed abortion bill and same sex marriage legalisation once they happen to find their way in the House for deliberation.

Malawi Midwives Ready To Tell Own Stories

About 30 midwives across the country have been equipped with citizen journalism skills to help them write and report their daily work experiences for the public to see the correct picture of their tireless efforts of saving lives and prevailing working conditions.

The initiative championed by the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe motherhood is headway in uplifting the Malawi midwifery profile and documenting the outstanding work which mostly go unnoticed as they are only featured highly whenever they make a mistake.

Water Scarcity Hits Parliament: Force Early Adjournment

Deputy Speaker of the Malawi National Assembly, Esther Mcheka Chilenje on Wednesday evening adjourned the House earlier than agreed time citing health grounds as taps runs dry at the Parliament.

The adjournment that happened at 18:44 hours left Leader of House, George Chaponda and his fellow cabinet ministers gob smacked as it happened just after Government had successfully won the motion to extend the sitting time for the Committee of Supply to last night hours.

Govt Punishes MPs; Worked Till Night On Tuesday

Leader of House in the National Assembly, George Chaponda on Tuesday forced Members of Parliament to work till the night hours following prolonged debates that caused delays in passing the budgetary allocation made to each various Government ministries and departments.

Normally, the National Assembly is adjourned at 17:00 hours each sitting day, however, this was not the case on Tuesday as the House sitting hours were extended till late in order to recover the lost time during the day.

Mw Govt. Says Discipline Is Answer To Health Sector Woes

Kumpalume:we are instilling discipline 

Government says instilling discipline in the health sector will help to end current health sector woes.

Minister of Health, Peter Kumpalume said in an interview after listening to the presentation of findings and recommendations from the Parliamentary Health Committee following visits to various districts on quality of health service delivery.

Kumpalume while acknowledging the existence of the problems and issues presented by the Committee, said there is nothing new as the ministry already knows all problems in the sector.

He therefore said the only remedy to put to an end most of the challenges is to brining in discipline in the sector as the Ministry established that the biggest problem is about the attitudes.

“The biggest problem that we face in the health sector is not so much that people are not doing anything. We as the Ministry are addressing those problems” he said 

Then explained; “The biggest problem in the Ministry is not so much say about money, at the end of the day the biggest problem is about the attitudes. 

We have talked about discipline and we have talked about powers concentration at headquarters. But when we had one party state, power was even more concentrated at Capital Hill, and things were working because people knew that there were consequences if they don’t perform and somehow, we have run away from that, and that is kind of discipline that I want to institute in the Ministry of Health”

He said since appointed as head for the ministry, he has successfully instituted discipline especially strong punishments on drug theft as well as for underperformances and that there are indicators that the Ministry is now well disciplined.

“To me by far the biggest problem is the change of attitudes. When the President says let’s have a change of mindset, that is very important because it is only then we can truly transform the health sector.”

He said there are more reforms taking place in the Ministry of Health. Added that there are several achievements including signing of MOU with CHAM, implementation of some of the suggested  areas for health reform, for hospital operations and autonomy have been already been worked on.

Lunguzi

Honorable Juliana Lunguzi, Chairperson for the Parliamentary Health Committee said findings of the Committee following field trips as regards quality of health service delivery established that there are still problems in the health sector.

Unavailability of drugs, lack of enough workers and the need for the autonomy of the central hospitals are among cited problems in the Committee report.

“On equipment and supplies, we found out that in most of our health facilities we get equipment but repairing is a nightmare. We hardly repair our equipment we just dump the equipment, we also don’t have reagents and is an issue that needs to be looked into.” Said Lunguzi

“We are hoping that we will get solutions on how best we can address these issues.” She hoped

The Parliamentary Committee on Health Reform Symposium Agenda, discussed findings of the Health Committee field trips as regards quality of health service delivery, analyzed the Ministry of Health led health reforms and how they address service delivery challenges. 

The meeting also was organized to agree specific actions that need to be covered in the Health Reform process with timeframes and Parliamentary Health Committee oversight.

Opposition Defeated On Amendment Motion On ACB Appointments

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

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

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.

Health Sector Needs Urgent Solutions

Civil Society Organizations, Health Professional Associations and Patients Interest Groups says Government should not hesitate to solve number of problems facing the health sector at the moment.

This was said following the petition delivered to the National Assembly on Friday through Chair person for the Health Committee of Parliament, Juliana Lunguzi.

The Groups says most Health sector services are crippled which are causing leading to the poor quality services to the patients.

Gift Trapence, executive director for Cedep who is one of the nine signatories for the petition said the solutions in the health sector are needed now.

The petitioners observe that Malawi continue to struggle in its quest to provide free health services but gains supposed to accrue to average Malawian continue being eroded due to challenges in drugs and medical supplies availability coupled with inadequate funding for the health sector.

  

They therefore asked the National Assembly to intervene to the current situation and on the adequate National Budget allocation to the health sector.

"We are concerned with the significantly reduced Other Recurrent Transactions (ORT) allocation from K16.5 billion in 2014/2015 national budget to K12. 7 billion in 2015/2016 financial year.

This has affected the capacity of Ministry of Health to meet its obligations of ensuring quality care for all Malawians. District and Central Hospital received lowest allocation in recent years at 4.7% of the total of health sector budget leading to failure to settle water and electricity bills, stoppage of locum services, inadequate food for patients, challenges in referrals and failure to maintain equipment. There are no functional x-ray machines" reads petition

The petition adds: "We are concerned with Government failure to effectively address challenges surrounding drugs such as unavailability of drugs due to limited funding, drug pilferage and leakage, leading to low performance of curative services"

Among recommendations made in the petition includes increased national budget allocation to health of 15% of the total expenditure in order to meet Abuja Declaration to which Malawi is signatory.

It is also requesting Treasury to revise upwards the the ORT allocation to the sector and speedy process in the consultations on health financing including user fees as an option to sustainably finance the health sector. 

Malawi Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Personally Affected by HIV AIDS (MANERERA+), Centre for Development of People (CEDEP), National Organization of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi (NONM), Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN), Pharmaceutical Society of Malawi, Medical Doctor's Union, Patient and Community Welfare Foundation, Radiographers Association and Paramedics and Allied Health Workers are the signatories to the petition.

Kamlepo Call For Peter Mutharika Resignation Over MSB Sale

There was a heated debate in the National Assembly after learning that the Malawi Savings Bank sale has been reached and the government has signed the deal with FDH Bank on Thursday morning.

The information reached the house in the afternoon and resulted into the early lunch break as members began to demand for more explanations from the government over the decision.

Immediately the house resumed sitting in the afternoon a lot of members of parliament including Uladi Mussa, member for Salima South asked why the Minister had decided to sell the bank yet the house had on Wednesday passed a motion which restricts sale of MSB instead, provide enough resources.

He even asked why the sale was done yet the president announced the suspension of the sale.

However Minister of Finance Goodall Gondwe said “Before we took this action president announced his decision that we can now go on with the sale.”

The national assembly passed resolution to halt to sale the bank when the committee on Budget and Finance on Wednesday brought in the house, a report which recommended government to use other avenues except sale of the bank

Rumphi East legislature, Hon. Kamlepo Kalua while wonder to whose interest did the President had announced the decision to sale the bank made a strong call that “Am therefore calling the resignation of the president of the Republic of Malawi Professor Peter Mutharika!

Chakwera

But Leader for the house in the National Assembly Francis Kasaila tried to rescue the president invain by saying “This is an executive decision on behalf of all Malawians” and added that the decision was legal

Leader of Opposition Hon. Lazarus Chakwera said, the decision to sale the bank was lack of transparency from beginning to end

He said the minds of the executive were made up to go for the decision and set aside loads of calls from the public.

He said people should expect more problems in future and the poor Malawian will pay the price.

He also bemoaned that the relevance of National Assembly on the matter was overlooked

There were emotions as the motion was being debated to the extent that the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Esther Chilenje pleaded for debate of the matter with “sober mind”

Chairperson for Agriculture in the National Assembly Hon. Felix Jumbe registerd his concern in the house saying the sale of MSB is a loss to Malawi’s strategic asset.

He even suggested that Malawi would have recapitalized the bank by asking people to contribute K20, 000 per person which would have raised over K50 billion.

“You are causing poverty to people of Malawi by selling the Malawi’s strategic assets” and pleaded for rescind of the decision 

Hon. Juliana Lunguzi

Dedza East Parliamentarian Juliana Lunguzi described the sale as one of the worst decision ever made and worried if the laws of the land are any important regarding that by requirement of the law the house had presented report which the whole house adopted and restricted the sale of the Bank. She then questioned the relevance of the existing laws.