Ex-Speaker schools Malawi MP on pronunciation  

Former Speaker of the National Assembly and Member of Parliament (MP) for Mwanza Central Davies Katsonga on Friday rose on a point of order to correct fellow legislator, MP for Mchinji East Kayo Zimchetera for alleged wrong word pronunciation.

Zimchetera was alleged to have said ‘healthy centre’ instead of ‘health centre’ while commenting to the mid-year budget statement presented to parliament last week by finance and economic planning minister Goodall Gondwe.

“First of all let me congratulate the Finance Minister for the midyear budget that he presented in Parliament on 26th February 2016, while I commend the midyear budget I also want to request government to consider building a ‘healthy centre’ in my constituency,” Zimchetera was understood to have said.

But rising on a point of order Katsonga said the wrong pronunciation had implication of relaying wrong message.

“Mr Second Deputy Speaker Sir, the word is pronounced as health centre and not healthy centre sir, because when you say healthy centre it means something totally different,” he said.

In his ruling Second Deputy Speaker Clement Chiwaya while concurring with Katsonga’s observation defended the Mchinji legislator saying he had a right to pronounce the word as he did because pronunciations sometimes depend on where the person is coming from.

“Let us allow a little bit of diversity in these issues, it sometimes depends on where the person is coming from. For example, I can pronounce the old capital city of this country as Zomba but someone can pronounce the same word as Somba,  someone might call wakuda as wakudha, Mzuzu as Muzuzu,” clarified Chiwaya attracting laughter.