MPHIA Survey Researchers Struggling To Get Blood Samples From Some Participants-NSO

Isaac Chirwa: The prevalence is mainly in Towns

The National Statistical Office (NSO) has disclosed to the Parliamentary Committee on Nutrition, HIV and AIDS that the major obstacle in the ongoing survey ‘Population Based HIV/AIDS Assessment has been the unwillingness of some participants to allow researchers drawing blood samples from them.

NSO together with Centre for Social Research is carrying out two surveys in the country; Malawi Population Based HIV/AIDS Assessment (MPHIA) and Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).

Isaac Chirwa, Head of Demographic and Social Statistics Division at National Statistics Office (NSO) said although the study is going on smoothly, but the biggest challenge has been to convince some participants in the MPHIA survey that the blood samples being taken from them are for the noble cause.

“One of the major challenges is basically myths associated with drawing of blood. So, sometimes people will be unwilling to give their blood.” Said Chirwa in an interview after meeting with the Committee on Thursday 

“But we would like to implore the communities out there to understand that this is a Government sanctioned survey, and this information is going to help them as communities in the sense that Government will be able to do proper planning and come up with effective interventions for combating this HIV disease. So the communities are requested to be cooperative.” He pleaded

He disclosed that this challenge is generally taking place in both rural and urban areas as people believes the blood samples taken from them is going to be used in the wrong way.

“Actually I was even surprised that this problem is more prevalence in the urban than in the rural. People in the rural are even more cooperative than people in the urban.” Added Chirwa but said efforts are being made to civic educate people about the importance of the survey and a team is being sent ahead of the researchers to dispel fears people may have

Another problem that was noted but is said to be minor was difficulties in finding men in their homes during weekdays particularly in urban areas, but Chirwa said they are solving the problem by booking appointments with men during the weekends.

MPHIA study is among others mainly looking at population prevalence of HIV in the country, the efficacy of the HIV drugs that people are taking.

On Thursday, NSO was basically informing the committee about two surveys taking place in the country; Malawi Population Based HIV/AIDS Assessment (MPHIA) and Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).

The committee was informed of the objectives of the two studies and expected dates for the announcement of the results for the two studies. Chirwa said results for the DHS which has come to an end are expected to be out in May but for the MPHIA results are expected to come out probably in July or towards the end of the year. 

Both are random based national wide surveys targeting people of all backgrounds. However, MPH is mainly targeting almost all age groups while for DHS is only targeting the people age between 15 to 64.

Industrial Hemp First Trial: Shows The Plant Is Harmless, Can Be Grown In Malawi

Industrial Hemp trial field 

Preliminary findings from the first round trial of growing Industrial Hemp and identification of varieties of low THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) has proven that Malawi is suitable land and that five cultivars used in the trial have very low THC. 

THC an active ingredient in marijuana (chemical element that drives people high when they smoke tobacco or ingest alcohol in other words it is the chemical responsible for most of marijuana's psychological effects.)

Presidents Will No More Sit On Speaker’s Chair-Legal Affairs Committee Proposal

No more sitting on this Chair again 

The very long tradition of having President taking seat on the Chair of Speaker of the National Assembly when opening the new Session and Budget Meetings will soon come to an end if the new amendment proposal by Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament is adopted by the House.

Process of enhancing procedures of calling President to respond to members questions and question times for President after delivering the State of National Address in the House has necessitated the Presidents sitting changes. 

Proposed amendment by the Committee will require President take seat on a newly allocated place while speaker still maintains his Chair so that he remains in control of the House.

Current sitting 

Proposed change on Sitting 

Current practice, Presidents take seat on the Chair of the Speaker and remain seated until finishing delivering the State of National Address and leaves the House while the Speaker seats on a new allocated place.

Chakhwantha

“You know that there is the need for President to be coming to Parliament to answer questions, and if we could not think about where he will be sitting, there would have been some complications whereby members of Parliament will fail to engage with the President.” Explains hon. Peter Chakhwantha, Chairperson for the Committee

“Because, once the Speaker leaves that chair, that means whoever sit on that, takes control of the House and if the President continues to sit on that seat, that means he will be the one deciding the game.” He said 

“So, we felt that the President should have his own seat and the Speaker should maintain that seat so that he is in charge of the House.” 

This new arrangement further means that the Speaker will during question time remain in control of taking questions on behalf of president for him to respond, taking point of orders and supplementary questions and make usual guidance of the House.

“So, if we were to leave matters as they are that means it would have been the President choosing who should ask him, and who should get answer from. So, we have done it in a way that President should come to Parliament but will have a reserved seat, while the Speaker, being the head of Parliament will still being in control of affairs.” Added Chakhwantha

President Treatment When In Parliament

When President enters the Chamber, takes the Seat of the Speaker and signal the House to take seat by saying “Pray Be Seated” and takes the Chair

After delivering the State of the National Address, Speaker seating at some reserved place, rises and makes some announcements after which he says “It is now His Excellency the President’s pleasure to take his leave (of the House)” and adjourns the House to the next sitting day.

Before President enters the Chamber, the House firstly convenes for short period of time which the Speaker after announces Business of the Day’s Sitting suspends proceedings until President takes his Chair in the Chamber. 

Privileges Committee Of Parliament Consults Court On Application Of Contempt’s

Privileges Committee of Parliament on Friday, saught legal guidance from the Judiciary on how it can legally execute some of its functions particularly on matters of Contempt of Parliament Act.

The Committee wanted to hear from courts how they handle cases on the contempt of court so that same rules can be applied by the committee when resolving issues that contravene the parliamentary privileges.

Chigona

Joseph Chigona, Registrar of the High Court and Supreme Court confirmed the development immediately he finished meeting with the Committee on Friday.

“The issue for discussion today was on contempt of court” He said 

Mzomera

But the Chairperson for the Privilages Committee, Rev. Christopher Mzomera Ngwira described the meeting with the Registrar as moment of borrowing a leaf from the judiciary and said “We have learnt a lot.”

“The main issue of summoning the registrar to appear before the Committee of Privileges is because this is a newly formed Parliamentary Committee which is mandated to look into the welfare of the members of Parliament and all staff working here. 

Now, there is Contempt of Parliament Act here and in courts there is Contempt of Court. So, we wanted to know from them as to how they deal with someone found to have been in Contempt of Court, what punishments and how do they apply such punishments. So, this Committee will be dealing with the very same issues so we wanted to borrow leaf from them.” He said 

Ngwira mentioned that his Committee is mandated to be handling; conflicts among members of Parliament, conditions of services, privileges, bleach of privileges like summons and arrests for parliamentarian during the Meeting of National Assembly as well as handle issues of absenteeism among legislatures as some of the issues that require legal help for them to appropriately apply appropriate action.

“This is what indeed we needed to learn from our courts as well, what is it they should expect us to be doing so that we should also have a limit because there is separate of powers between parliament and law enforcers so we wanted to get that guidance.” Said Ngwira

“So you will see that this is a very serious issue, that needed courts to civic educate us so that what we will be doing should have a backing from the legal perspective because sometimes you can take an action and resulting a member rushing to court to get an injunction. So we want to do things with confidence that we are doing the rightful thing. “ he added

Committee Concludes Enhancement Of Laws On Calling For Presidents To The House

Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament has finally finished with an excercise of enhancing into the Standing Orders, laws for calling President to Parliament.

The Committee was mainly outlining in the Standing Orders the existing two Constitutional provisions Section 89 (3)(c) and 89 (4) that outlines procedures for the time the President is supposed to come to Parliament and called to answer questions from members.

The Committee decision to incorporate the laws into the Standing Orders is basically to help legislatures to correctly refer to each provision and know when to use them when calling the President to the House to respond to their questions.

Chakhwantha

Peter Chakhwantha, Chairperson for the Legal Affairs Committee explains; "What the committee has done is to make sure that the two have been clearly spelled out as separate provisions which also require different manner of being handled. So what we have done is put in black and white that this should be done this way and the other section be handled in this way.”

Under section 89 (3) (c), it is mandatory that before the House consider budget, the president should come to answer questions and policies of Government. And therefore, where the president is required to respond to questions in accordance with the provision, President may not delegate such functions to a member of the Cabinet. While section 89 (4) President can be summoned at any time by the motion of the House, however, during that time President can delegate a Cabinet Minister. 

At present, the President comes to the House for the opening of Budget Meeting and New Session of National Assembly to deliver State of National Address and after finishing, the President’s take leave of the House without being asked and it is difficult for members to call President to the House to respond to their questions.

But outlining of these laws into the Standing Orders will result in a slight change of the Programme of opening of the Budget Meetings as immediately when the President finish delivering State of National Address will follow question time from members for the President to respond.

"To make sure that we seal all loopholes that one would want to take advantage of, we have tried to put some procedures that will commensurate with the other section 93, because remember there are two sections there. The other one deals with President when he finishes addressing the Nation, but the other one is where you give 21 day notice to the President with the question that you want to pose and for him to come to respond to that which we just noticed of late that Presidents want to delegate most of these answers." Continued Chakhwantha

Chakhwantha then said by clearly outlining the two legislations into the Standing Orders will remove unnecessary confusions that have prevented members from inviting the President to answer their questions.

"There was no such confusion, but maybe it was deliberately created to wear that face of confusion. The law is very clear, the president is supposed to take questions from members of Parliament once he finishes delivering State of National Address."  He said, "But what happened that time, there was no need for us to go back to Standing Orders and work out as if these things are not yet provided in the laws of Malawi."

He then emphasized that the National Assembly needs President because some of the questions members have, were already attempted by Ministers and they preferred to defer them to have the Head of State consulted. 

"So, where they would say they would rather consult President in that scenario we would actually just ask the President to come. Where he has to delegate there must be sufficient reasons that can convince us.” he said 

During the just ended Meeting of the National Assembly, five legislatures who include Leader of Opposition and President of Malawi Congress Party, Lazarus Chakwera failed in their attempt to force President Peter Mutharika to appear in the House to answer their questions as it was noted in the House that legislatures had wrongly quoted the provisions.

Procedures Of Asking President for Oral Replies 

Current Standing Orders had only recognized Section 89 (3) (c) of the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi that states “The President shall each year… attend Parliament and shall… respond to questions”

The Standing Order sets therein procedures for asking questions to the President which are regulated by the Standing Order 50 (3) (b) as follows.

• Members intending to ask questions to the President will submit notice of their questions to the Office of the Speaker. But the question should not; be excessive length, involve more than one ministry, include names of persons unless necessary, include offensive expressions and include any statement of fact unless the question is unintelligible without it.
• The question will be sent to the Office of the President and Cabinet to prepare the responses and that questions addressed to the President are taken on Wednesdays.
• In asking the question, the Speaker firstly calls out the question number and then constituency name of the member before calling upon President to provide the answer to the question. But another member is not allowed to ask the question on behalf of the owner of the question.
• If the question has been asked but the reply is not given, then the question may be carried forward to the next time when the President is called again by the House to answer the questions and the carry over question shall take precedence over all fresh questions on the Order Paper of that day.
• Any member may ask a supplementary question directly arising from the original question for purpose of elucidating any matters of a fact on an answer which has already been given. And a Member may withdraw one’s own question either before the question is placed on the Order Paper or when the question is being asked in the House.

Anyone Can Recommence Msonda’s ‘Kill Gays’ Criminal Case-Legal Affairs Committee

The Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs has finally agreed that anyone can re-commence the discontinued case of Kenneth ‘Ken’ Msonda but proper laws for opening criminal case must be observed.

Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) discontinued the criminal case when it was observed that private lawyers who commenced the case had done so without consulting the office.

Chakhwantha

“Members have decided that we should leave to the general public, those who are interested to pursue that issue further they should feel free to do so.” confirmed Peter Chakhwantha, Chairperson for Legal Affairs Committee

DPP, Mary Kachale, had on Thursday afternoon appeared before the Committee to justify her decision to discontinue the criminal case No 16 of 2016, Republic Versus Kenneth Msonda on Inciting another to contravene the law contrary to section 124 (1)(b) of the penal code.

Chakhwantha has therefore reminded those who want to pursue with this case to take advice from DPP that since the case was closed it is not possible to re-open the same case number, rather, they should be go back to wheels of justice to open the case using different case number.

“I must emphasize that it is now the view of the committee that members of general public should know how to commence these criminal proceedings especially they have to start with office of Director of Public Prosecutions.

As for committee, we feel whatever happened when commencing the closed case is something that we should indeed not condone” added Chakhwantha

Politician, Kenneth 'Ken' Msonda angered Human Rights defenders early this year for allegedly to have openly suggested the killing of homosexuals as the only solution to end the rising cases of homosexuality in the country which the charge sheet cited him conduct to have contravened section 209 of the penal code.

It is reportedly that in that Facebook post, the Peoples Party (PP) Publicity and Administrative Secretary, Msonda, had further described homosexual people “worse than ‘dogs” and are “sons and daughters of the devil”

Legal Affairs Committee Enhancing Laws On Inviting President In Standing Orders

The Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs is enhancing two Constitution provisions on the procedure of calling President to Parliament to be clearly stipulated in Parliamentary Standing Orders.

The aim is to make comprehensive Standing Order that members can correctly refer to when calling President to Parliament to respond to their questions.

The process follows failed attempt by five legislatures who includes Leader of Opposition and President of Malawi Congress Party, Lazarus Chakwera to force President Peter Mutharika appear in the just ended Meeting of National Assembly to answer their questions as it was noted in the House that legislatures had wrongly quoted the provisions.

Deputy Chairperson for the Committee, Maxwell Thyolera explained that the committee is enhancing two Constitution provisions Section 89 (3)(c) and 89 (4) to enable legislatures to quote them correctly by clearly show in Standing Orders under which time each of the provision can be applied when calling the President. 

Both Constitution provision outlines procedures for the time the President is supposed to come to Parliament and to answer questions from members.

Under 89 (3) (c) it is mandatory that before the House consider budget, the president should come to answer questions and policies of Government. And therefore, where the president is required to respond to questions in accordance with the provisions of Section 89 (3) (c) of the Constitution, he or she may not delegate such functions to a member of the Cabinet. While section 89 (4) President can be summoned at any time by the motion of the House, however, during that time President can delegate a Cabinet Minister. 

But during the just ended 3rd Meeting of the 46 Session of National Assembly both constitutional provisions were interchangeably used by members when calling the President and this is why members had insisted to see President in the House and not delegated Minister yet this was not a period that was mandatory for the Parliament to invite the President. 

“During other meetings the president can be summoned by the resolution of the House. So, under that constitution provision there was no any standing order to support that and this is why during the last meeting there were some problems where others were confusing the two provisions because the other one was operationalised  by the standing order 70 while the second on section 89 (4) was not operationalized.” noted Thyolera

“So what we are doing now, is to operationalise both sections section 89 (3) (c) and 89 (4) so that may be things could go on smoothly the president should be called to Parliament when need be.” He added

He then urged Presidents to comply to these two constitutional provisions “This is a constitutional provision and the president before assuming the office is sworn to defend the constitution and is a custodian of the constitution. So, it is our expectation that the constitution will be respected in that respect.”

He also added that the committee has proposed inclusion in the new provision in the standing order 67 so that members can be free to ask five questions and five supplementary questions. Another section 89 (4) the similar procedure of allowing members to ask five questions and five supplementary questions will apply. And we are proposing to invite President on Wednesdays for one and a half hour session”