Trouble brewing at Malawi parliament: Plot against CoP Roosevelt Gondwe

With only July to go to the expiry date of contract for acting Clerk of Parliament Roosevelt Gondwe, underhand tactics are brewing at the country’s sole legislature.

Nyasa Times understands that Renard Mapemba deputy clerk for corporate has ganged up with Henry Njolomole deputy clerk for parliamentary and Chikondi Kachinjika the financial controller to have Gondwe ousted.

The once turmoil-ridden and highly polarised National Assembly has for the last two years witnessed some semblance of camaraderie and conviviality ever since Gondwe was engaged at the helm of the secretariat in an acting capacity.

Gondwe’s contract expires at the end of August 2015.

Influential members of the secretariat management has outmanoeuvred aging Gondwe to advance the agenda of a few selfless souls of the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) to have his contract not renewed on the account that the old hand in parliament work is not prone to manipulation.

A strict fiscal disciplinarian in money matters, Gondwe has earned himself the wrath and scorn of the majority of PSC and some greedy senior officials, with the resultant effect that there is a lot of mudslinging on the former diplomat, who has spent most of his time doing parliamentary work.

The danger is that the PSC is now putting up his job up for grabs not for the good reasons. It will be for good reason because the acting clerk hits the mandatory retirement age of 60 next year.

The PSC would like to use the vacuum that will be created by the yet-to-be appointed a “Yes-Sir” acting clerk to siphon and abuse funds like it were when the controversial clerk of parliament Matilda Katopola at the helm then was interdicted in May 2012 following abuse of power and theft charges in court.