Clerk of Parliament Katopola sent on forced leave
Beleaguered Clerk of Parliament Matilda Katopola was on Monday sent on an indefinite leave in which she will not be allowed to have anything to do with work at the National Assembly, Nyasa Times understands.
The development is in the wake of a decision reached by the Parliamentary Service Commission which sat on Monday on the way forward for self-styled hard working public servant, who is a pariah now.
Katopola’s forced leave follows her refusal to be relocated to diplomatic service or to the Law Commission, arguing the posts were too junior.
She told in the face the top civil servant in the country at the Capital Hill that “with this government, I can’t see myself working anywhere else besides Parliament,” said a source at the Capital Hill.
Her predecessor Roosevelt Gondwe, who found himself similar circumstances like Katopola after the death of Speaker Rodwell Munyenyembe in 2006, accepted to head the Malawi diplomatic service in Japan, where he, some say, out of frustration could not complete his tenure.
Fifty-seven year-old Gondwe is now in Malawi involved in a series of periodic consultancy work within the region.
Meantime, Katopola will now be indicted for the many atrocities she has committed at the country’s sole legislature in light of what Joyce Banda said in her state-of-nation address on Friday regarding those alleged to have acted against the law.
President Banda told government controlling officers that they’ve a month to report information related to fraud or abuse of public funds during the previous administration.
“I am therefore requiring all Principal Secretaries, Chief Executives and all public officers who are aware of instances of fraud, embezzlement…in their institutions or has come to their knowledge, to bring those matters to my attention as soon as possible. If this information does not reach my office by 18th June 2012 and it is later discovered, there will be no sympathy for those involved,” Banda said in her first address to parliament as president on Friday
Katopola steered the National Assembly with a heavy hand. She is allegedly involved in an endless litany of abuse of office, maladministration, corruption, favouritism and nepotism.
The nation is yet to learn how she managed to keep her job when she was found guilty of dubiously awarding contract to her firm Monick Trends.
The nation is yet to know how an un-tabled electricity bill found its way in the in-tray of Late President Bingu wa Mutharika for assent.
Banda said her government will not tolerate nepotism.
“I see jobs not because of where they come from, but because they qualify for them. I see businesses winning tenders not because they have bribed, not because they sponsor ruling party but they qualify to deliver,” she told parliament.
The President said Malawi needs “strong political leadership based on the spirit of Umunthu that will deliberately promote a highly skilled public service that is backed up by the effective systems which will be able to provide steady national direction for sustained development.”
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