Malawi Parliament cannot meet, no govt bills – Phoya

Leader of government in Parliament Henry Phoya on Friday told the Business Committee of the august House that the National Assembly cannot meet as government has no business to table before it.

A Member of Parliament (MP) who is also in the committee confided in Nyasa Times that this angered all opposition MPs who threatened to walk out of the meeting.

“Phoya communicated that if it is possible, Parliament might only have an emergency meeting during the first week of April just to approve the World Bank loan if all goes well,” said the source.

But Phoya was quoted in a the local media as saying president Joyce Banda might discuss with Speaker Henry Chumunthu Banda if it is possible  to convene the National Assembly.

There have been calls to summon an emergency meeting of Parliament where two reports – one from the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament and another from the External Forensic Audit – are supposed to be presented ahead of the May 20, 2014 tripartite elections.

Vice Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (Pac) of Parliament David Nyadani said government has been acting suspiciously over calls for an emergency sitting of Parliament. He wondered why Capital Hill was instead coming up with dates of making the forensic report public when it has not gone through Parliament as is required.

“In the last Parliament that met in November last year, the committee [Pac] recommended that there should be an emergency meeting of Parliament once the forensic report is out,” he said.

Nyadani explained that the arrangement is that Parliament is supposed to receive the forensic report which the committee is supposed to deliberate on it before presenting it back to the House.

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