CHRR, Cedep Cautions Legislatures On ATI Bill

Trapence and Mtambo

Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) and Centre for Development of People (Cedep) warns Legislatures not to pass Access to Information Bill (ATI) in its present form saying it is adulterated bill.

A statement reacting to President Peter Mutharika State of National Address, from the two organisations says presently, grey areas in the Access to Information bill include: Scrapping of a provision that information holders should disclose information in the public interest such as unauthorised use of public funds; The introduction of fees for Malawians to access to information; and the Removal of provision which would have enabled people to demand information before the law was enacted

The ATI bill will be officially presented in the National Assembly for tabling by Information Minister during this Third Meeting of 46th Session of Parliament, to consider the 2016/2017 National Budget.

Timothy Mtambo and Gift Trapence executive directors for CHRR and Cedep respectively,  expressed in a the Statement today that " In the first place, CHRR and Cedep commend the President for indicating that the long-awaited Access to Information Bill would be tabled in Parliament within the session. We, at CHRR and Cedep, however, would like to reiterate our calls on parliamentarians to exercise democratic maturity by addressing all the undemocratic elements in the adulterated bill to reflect the spirit and purpose of the bill in a Malawian democracy."

They mentioned that they find the mentioned grey areas a regrettable attempt by government to render the Access to Information law toothless in this democratic dispensation. 

"The law, if enacted in its gazetted version, will fall short of addressing key issues such as Cashgate as well as other forms of power-abuse, among other vices." Adds the statement  

Among others the statement from CHRR and Cedep further call Government to go an extra mile in expediting prosecuting cases involving cash-gate and people with albinisms.

On cases involving people with albinisms, CHRR and Cedep bemoaned that cases of abductions and killings of people with albinism continue to escalate at alarming rate regardless of the recent stiffer sentences Courts are handing to convinced criminals.

"All this points to the fact that more needs to be done." Observe the statement suggesting that Malawi Police Service (MPS) and community relationship is key to prevention of abduction, exhumation and killing of people with albinism. 

"Government through MPS ought to strengthen its community outreach structures such as community policing in dealing with the vice" adds the statement 

The statement further calls upon parliamentarians to exercise democratic maturity and patriotism as they conduct their deliberations on behalf of Malawians who are facing numerous challenges in their daily lives.

MCP, PP Response To SONA Today: Inside MCP Response

Chakwera to respond to Mutharika speech 

Leaders of Opposition Parties will this afternoon respond to State of the National Address (SONA) by President Peter Mutharika delivered on Friday when opening the Budget Meeting for 2016/2017.

With immediate reactions the parties made through media just after Mutharika had finished speaking, expectations are high that both Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and Peoples Party (PP) will be full of critics. 

PP acting President, Uladi Mussa described Mutharika’s “Towards Recovery and Sustainable Social Economic Development” titled speech as repetition of old promises of development projects and lacked pertinent issues.

Similarly, honorable Jessie Kabwila, spokesperson for MCP says as their president Dr. Lazarus Chakwera is expected to respond this afternoon, MCP believes Mutharika speech was full of concessions that he has failed.

“It was good to hear him concede that growth has not gone according to the way they had said it will grow.” Observed Kabwila, “I think the speech was full of concessions of how life is difficult for the poor Malawian.”

President Mutharika speech admitted that due to bad weather conditions, Malawi economy failed to grow from projected 5.4% and went down to 3.1 in 2015 with inflation remaining high at 21.8 from projected decline of 16.4.

He however, he expressed hope that in 2016/2017 financial year economy is expected to register real GDP growth rate of 5.1% with inflation going down to 19.8%. He added that Malawi economy is slowly stabilizing due to austerity measures and fiscal policies that are in place and was optimistic that Malawi will do better and is gradually weaning itself from donor dependency.

“Where the speech comes short is on solutions.” She added then wondered “What are they planning to do to sort out this mess?”

Kabwila also observed that the State of National Address failed to articulate to their satisfaction on ending hunger in this country and she said that disappoints her party “that believes in the food security.”

“The State of the National Address was very economical with the truth when it came to focus on hunger.  I think it pussyfooted on the issue of hunger, it handled the issue of hunger with kid gloves. Actually, it went to the point of not telling the truth because we know people died of hunger.” She lamented disclosing that “In my own constituency [Salima North West] people had died”

She went on; “When I look at the State of National Address the major gap stands on the issue of hunger. However the leader of Opposition Right Honorable Dr. Lazarus Chakwera shall be responding in full on Monday.”

Honorable Kabwila concluded that in her own analysis, Mutharika speech “was very economical with the truth, it actually grossed over the hunger that we are going through, it grossed over the health crisis that Malawi is facing, the education sector is in a crisis, we know fees have just been introduced the universities are in disarray but he did not focus on that.”

Jumbe Welcome Mutharika Plans For Agriculture

Jumbe

Chairperson for Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development says President Peter Mutharika emphasis to intensify irrigation agriculture is right direction to make the country free of food shortage problems.

Felix Jumbe, Member of Parliament for Salima Central, however, said the country can completely eradicate the hunger if more funds are allocated to agriculture sector in this 2016/2017 National Budget for purpose of procuring food for people facing hunger this year and for this years crop production and investments in irrigation.

President Mutharika when addressing the National Assembly on Friday, outlined that agriculture remains one of the key priorities for Government because of its significance to the economy and that the sector will be placed highest priority to ensure both national and household food security as well as support agro industries.

“Government has also invited interested private sector investors to undertake commercial irrigation farming in order to boost maize production beginning this year. The programme will also involve medium-scale farmers and smallholder farmers to either utilize their existing irrigation facilities or rent unutilized irrigable land.” He said adding that Government will guarantee to buy the maize produced through the National Food Reserve Agency 

“We will also prioritize the development of dams and boreholes to reduce dependence on rain-fed agriculture.” And went on to add that Government will revamp extension farmer linkages by deploying more Field Assistants across the country as well as adopt some legislations and policies to guide the sector

“Government continues to prioritize investment in the Greenbelt Initiative in order to increase productivity of selected high value crops” he added

This has excited Honorable Felix Jumbe who said “This is a realization that this country is agro based and our strength in terms of economic recovery will come from agriculture without agriculture there will be no recovery”

He advised that "we need to increase production in Agriculture" and that President was being "realistic" in his speech.

“However, that discovery [that agriculture is source of recovery] is not enough” he observed, “Because we now have to put our structures, our investments and our priorities in agriculture right, to ensure that we can really produce and realize our potential” 

Jumbe said this years he expects to see the 2016/2017 National Budget allocating more resources to Agriculture sector for averting hunger to be faced by an estimated population of 3 million people and for crop production for this year which will bring food for 2017 season. He therefore welcomed President remarks to invest in viable commercial farmers to begin to produce maize for food and export

“That is a very good move because we cannot rely on the production from resource poor farmers to produce for the country” he said

He also highlighted the importance of begining to look at the investment in the sectors infrastructure "If we are to do irrigation we need to do good damming. If you put a dam in Mvera on Lilongwe river it should be able to irrigate the whole district of Salima, such investments are the ones that are needed.”

“So we need to look at the capital investments, structural investments so that Malawi can begin to move and that will also mean organization investment; we are looking at structural organization changes.” He said citing President Mutharika recently remarks that Water Boards should begin to look at irrigation as “type of actions that need to be undertaken”

He then proposed that it would make sense if Agriculture budget gets more allocation of not less than K250 billion for Malawi to change. He suggested that out of this figure, K100 billion can be used to procure food and K100 billion for farming while K50 billion can be for capital investments.

Opposition Angered By Pres. Mutharika Little Details On Addressing Albino Killings

Mutharika: said little on albino attacks

Opposition parties in Parliament have expressed their disappointment over President Peter Mutharika’s failure to give more details of how Government intends to fight against attacks and killings of people with albinism.

Both People’s Party (PP) and the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) concurred in separate interviews that the issue of albino attacks is a national crisis and therefore President Mutharika should have spent time in his State Of National Address explaining more about this problem.

In his speech titled “Towards Recovery and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development” President Mutharika touched on the issue of barbaric attacks of people with albinism when highlighting various support the Government made in 2015/16 financial year to disability and eldery.

He said Government undertook an investigative study to establish the root cause of attacks and killing of persons with albinism is some selected districts and that some cases have been speedily prosecuted and some suspects convicted by courts.

He then indicated that Government will in the next financial year intensify awareness campaign on the rights and welfare of people with disability, review the 1911 Witchcraft Act among others.

"We will ensure that our security institutions continue to work with relevant stakeholders in the protection of the rights of persons living with albinism, children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups" he assured later in his State of National Address 

However, opposition Parties are of the view that the President could have said more about this problem.

Mussa

Acting President for PP Uladi Mussa who described the Statement as a repetition of promises and that there was nothing new, expressed his disappointment that President Mutharika failed to provide clear details of how his Government intends to address the barbaric attacks of people with albinism.

“It is our worry as opposition, that we have seen there is nothing on the protection of people with albinism in this country.” Lamented then also singled out issues of secondary school fees hike, status of gay marriages issues and user fees in hospitals as some of the key issues that could have been articulated in the speech

“We thought that the President will give much emphasis on irrigation because the only way of dealing with our hunger situation is through irrigation, but the president has only mentioned about already existing [irrigation systems] saying Government would like to maintain them and not really that the big share of the budget will go for the irrigation in order to deal with hunger situation in the country” noted Mussa

“There is nothing new, it is a repetition, it is a song, it is like a campaign messages we have heard from this State of National Address.” he concluded

Eisenhower

Equally, the Malawi Congress Party Deputy Secretary General, Eisenhower Mkaka reacted, “We feel that the President could have said more on the issue of albino killings, attacks and exhumations of their bodies from graves but what has been said I think it is not enough”

He added that “It is worrisome” that the president did not give much importance to the issue which their party and Malawians regards “a crisis” that requires concerted efforts.

But, the United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator Mia Seppo observed that though there wasn’t much from President on ending albino attacks, however, much is being done on the ground to address the problem citing the recent president meeting with APAM [Association of People with Albinism] an institution that is driving and representing the people with albinism and strong statements from Minister of Home Affairs as well as Inspector General of Police.

“So I don’t think that there was no direct reference to people with albinism in the statement” he said, “Because there was direct reference to human rights in general, there was also direct reference to protecting the most vulnerable in the society and there was also direct reference to persons with albinism”

But she stressed that in view of strong pronouncements being made on the attacks and killings of persons with albinism with the help of the recommendations recently made by the UN independent expert on people with albinism and the existing Government Response Plan on Persons with Albinism, “the focus should now be to build on that and implementation of that response plan.”

Seppo further stressed provision of adequate funding to the Department of Disability for it to implement the Response Plan and that she is obviously waiting for Minister of Finance Honorable Goodall Gondwe Budget Statement next week on how it is going to allocate for the response to albino attacks.

“The Department of disability is an underfunded department in an underfunded ministry so it is challenging and there is need to be kind of action across the Government in terms of trying to fund implementation of the Response Plan. And again there is need have very senior levels championing these issues” she emphasized

But she further commended action taken by President Mutharika in terms of meeting with APAM and some of the statements by ministries saying they are “very encouraging.”

ADMARC Has Adequate Funding To Eradicate Food Shortages-Muthatika Tells Parliament

President Peter Mutharika has informed Parliament that in the 2016/2017 Financial year, Government has provided to Agriculture Development Market Corporation (ADMARC) with adequate financial resources to procure maize as one way of addressing food shortages.

Addressing Parliament today at the opening of Third Meeting in the 46th Session of Parliament to consider the 2016/2017 Budget Mutharika said over three million Malawians will be food insecure.

But he said to address food shortages in the 2016/2017 financial year, Government has provided ADMARC with financial resources to procure maize soon after harvest to ensure that markets are fully stocked with commercial maize. 

He further informed the House that Government has also invited interested private sector investors to undertake commercial irrigation farming in order to boost maize production beginning this year adding that the programme will also involve medium-scale farmers and smallholder farmers to either utilize their existing irrigation facilities or rent unutilized irrigable land. 

In his State of National Address titled "Towards Recovery and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development” President Mutharika also mentioned that Agriculture  be the highest priority sector because it will ensure both national and household food security as well as support agro industries. 

Mutharika also informed the August House that he has directed that FISP should undergo further reforms to ensure that the programme is efficiently and effectively implemented. In the end, FISP must be run like in the private sector.

He also said the economy is slowly stabilizing citing the resumption of the Extended Credit Facility with International Monetary Fund (IMF) as testimony that the austerity measures and fiscal discipline are bearing fruits.

He added Government is optimistic that Malawi can do better and further assured the House that "we expect to improve the macroeconomic indicators for our economy as" a result of various measures Government has put in place.

He then indicated that the economy is expected to register a real GDP growth rate of 5.1 percent in 2016, and 7.0 percent in 2017 while the annual average rate of inflation is expected to fall from 21 percent in 2015 to 19.8 percent in 2016, with further improvements in 2017 and beyond.

In the ending 2015/2016 financial year on macro-economic environment and reforms, Mutharika noted that the Budget performance has been influenced by shocks caused by pressures from the rising food prices, exacerbated by low production of maize in the 2015 growing season due to floods, dry spells and early cessation of rain in most parts of the country. 

He said these effects the economy grew by only 3.1 percent in 2015 despite an earlier projection of 5.4 percent growth rate while the rate of inflation remained high at 21.8 percent in 2015 as compared to the projected rate of 16.4 percent. 

He further informed the House that the Domestic debt stock increased to K526.4 billion in 2015 as compared to K487.0 billion at the end of 2014. However, he said domestic debt as a ratio of GDP dropped from 15.6 percent in 2014 to 8.9 percent in 2015.

The opened Third Meeting in the 46th Session of Parliament to consider the 2016/2017 Budget this Friday, May 20 will end on Friday, July 8, 2016.

Cashgate Case: Katengeza For Suspended Sentence As Judgement Coming Week's Time

Katengeza has heart problem 

Convict in the infamous Cash-gate scandal, Angela Katengeza has prayed for a suspended sentence citing her health problems.

Through lawyer, Gilbert Khonyongwa, told Judge Fiona Mwale on Thursday that Katengeza has heart problem and Hypertension, therefore custodial sentence will lead to deterioration of her health given poor condition in Malawi prisons.

Katengeza is answering theft and money laundering amounting to K105 million after the Baker Tilly forensic audit report revealed her Faith Construction Company was one of the companies that were dubiously paid by Government in 2013 without rendering any service.

The case resumed on Thursday at Lilongwe High Court for oral submissions on sentencing where the State objected the defense application by requesting court to apply custodial sentence because medical arrangements will be made while she is in prison. It also acknowledged to have taken note of the medical report on heart problem and not hypertension.

“We do not believe that that should compel the court to give her non-custodial sentence” observed state prosecutor, Reyneck Matemba while acknowledging that her health condition may have advantage to her when it comes to sentencing

The state application underlined that the court must “be cautious” on setting precedence to would be offenders who may in future use health condition as a tool to escape punishments like custodial sentence.

Matemba added that money laundering is a very serious offence and Katengeza should face custodial sentence just like other convicts who committed same cashgate offence and are now serving custodial sentences.

Katengeza who told court last year that she is a pastor maintains her no guilty plea saying she unknowingly got herself into the scam after Leonard Kalonga former Deputy Director at then Ministry of Tourism borrowed her company certificate. According to her, she innocently lent out her company certificate to  Mr. Kalonga who wanted to use her company name in getting 'construction projects that were available at his office' but due to working conditions he could not have used his own company certificate. Katengeza said was promised to receive a percentage for lending out her certificate and she did not know that he could use it to defraud Government.

Court found her guilty and was convicted for theft and money laundering.

During submissions on Thursday, State, conceded defense application for leniency on the fact that Katengeza got only K3 million from the K105 million deal since the arrangement was to pay her for lending out her company certificate.

As well state acknowledged and conceded defense submission on cooperation shown by Katengeza throughout the case. On this, State said the convict played a very significant role of giving new information to State which lead to self guilty plea of Leonard Kalonga, of which Kalonga was identified as a person who recruited 17 companies that were involved in the scam.

Matemba said “if it were not for Angela Katengeza decision to testify” by giving information on how she got herself into the scam “Mr. Leonard Kalonga would have not changed” from no guilty to plea of guilty.

“Her decision to tell her story totally changed trial of Leonard Kalonga” said Matemba adding that this may work to her advantage on sentencing 

But, the state disagreed with the defense that her cooperation was a sign of remorse. State indicated that it believes that Katengeza has never shown sign of remorse by maintaining plea of not guilty and distancing herself to the criminal activity which she participated knowingly. 

The state also asked court not to consider Katengeza as a responsible person for her family, a person with good character, and that has lost her business following the case.

“She doesn’t have good character as both pastor and block leader” ruled out Matemba adding a responsible person would have realised that it was a criminal activity and she was supposed not to take part

Matemba also said her conduct does not show that she is "honesty” person that her honesty ended the moment she accepted to participate in a crime of defrauding Government.

Further, responding to defense complaint about the lengthy period of the trial, Matemba said “none of us have control over that and it is a natural consequence of indulging in criminal activity.”

In their submission, the defense have among other things said Katengeza is a first time offender who had no intention to participate in the scam as she had no plans at all  to steal from Government and that she was exploited and used by being dragged in the criminal activity.

"She did not know for example that lending company certificate to fellow contractor was unlawful." Added counsel Khonyongwa in the submission.

Court has adjourned and will set new date in two weeks time for judgment

This Is How Malawi National Budget Will Tackle Food Situation

A Sneak Peek Into 2016/2017 Budget 

The 2016/2017 National Budget will have more cuts on some expenditures to allow more funds to be used to subdue the hunger situation the country is facing.

Goodall Gondwe

Goodall Gondwe, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning is expected to present the Budget in few weeks time as Third Meeting in the 46th Session of Parliament to consider the 2016/2017 Budget begins this Friday, May 20 and will end on Friday, July 8, 2016.

Malawi requires close to 1.3 million metric tons of staple food following the persistent drought which has reduced the 2016 maize production by 12 percent less than previous season.

“This time as far as food is concerned we have three problems” he said mentioning low food production as first problem

The second problem he said Malawi will probably be forced “to go much further perhaps even outside Africa to import food” because neighboring countries like Zambia including South Africa that used to sell food to Malawi when faced with similar situation are also short of food this year.

“The third problem is that because people have not produced enough food they haven’t had much to sell and therefore they do not have enough money in the pocket. When we bring food in the country it will have to be sold and our people may not have enough money” he said indicating “We will have to find ways of getting money to the rural areas for example the budget is going to be concerned with that also.”

“Well, we are going to do something about all these three problems; there are problems that have to be solved, it means also that some of the things that we always do we may have to reduce a little so that we can get food for people to eat”