Malawi Electoral Commission gets K500mil for constituency demarcations
Members of parliament are most likely to increase following the government decision to allocate K500 million to Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) for demarcations of constituencies and wards across the country.
Finance minister Goodall Gondwe told the eager parliamentarians that he was hopeful that the exercise of demarcation or re demarcation of constituencies will be completed after the 2018.
“The process was stalled because of lack of information on population,” said Gondwe.
Some civil society groups and experts have been asking the government to reduce the number of legislators as Malawi is said to have more parliameentarians yet it is small in both size and population compared to other countries.
Malawi has 193 members of parliament against an estimated 17 million population and has 400 ward councillors.
Gondwe said the government will also commission a population census in 2018.
He also told the House that the Malawi Electoral Commission is working on electoral reforms some of which will be used during the 2019 general election
“A lot is going on only that it has been overshadowed by inapropriates,” said Gondwe.
Lilongwe Msozi South MP Vitus Dzoole Mwale asked the government to relocate MEC to the capital city to cut on expenses and make the office more effective and efficient.
The consultants should not just eat our money by creating more chaos with the demarcation exercise. Malawians would like to have fewer constituencies than the present number so that our Parliament can only have about 100 MPs.
ur are correct mister
I expect Malawi to have not more that 150 constituencies.
For God’s sake, how can Malabada alone be regarded as a constitutency?
This is crazy!