Members of Parliament (MPs) yesterday adopted a motion that steps must be put in place to ensure the National Assembly has operational independence institutionally without any interference from the other branches of government, especially the Executive.<\/p>\n
This partly follows the failure by government to release funds for some committee meetings, a thing which has been construed by some MPs, especially those from opposition political parties, that government is deliberately stifling oversight operations of the committees.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the current mid-year budget review meeting, some committees, including the Budget and Finance, the Public Accounts and the Legal Affairs, failed to meet because of funding constraints.<\/p>\n
And according to the mover of the motion, independent MP for Ntchisi North, Boniface Kadzamira, operational independence of Parliament will improve its oversight roles which can, in turn, assist government in making public decisions.<\/p>\n
He argued that limiting the independence of Parliament by not properly funding it, among others, means government does not want to be checked and brought to book for its acts.<\/p>\n
He said Parliament needs to be strengthened so that it can track how funds, including those in the national budget, have been utilised.<\/p>\n
\u201cLimiting the independence of Parliament means government does not want to be answerable for what it does. It means government is comfortable with the status quo that is: pass it and forget it,\u201d said Kadzamira.<\/p>\n
The motion was first presented on November 12 last year and debate continued yesterday before it was adopted. In his contribution to the debate, MP for Dowa East, Richard Chimwendo argued that Parliament operations have been affected by the government side, especially the Ministry of Finance, mainly at committee level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI belong to the Agriculture Committee and we failed to meet because of problems of funding. We were supposed to monitor how Fisp [Farm Input Subsidy Programme] is being implemented, but we failed because of funding,\u201d said Chimwendo.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe are experiencing hunger in this country. We have heard about people queuing in Admarc depots but never went as a committee to see for ourselves… This House must be properly independent. It must have its own staff dealing with financial issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his winding up speech, Kadzamira argued that the independence of Parliament does not take away or destroy its governance structures but strengthens them such that such fears are misleading.<\/p>\n
The motion, which was passed without any serious resistance from the government side, refers the matter to the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament \u201cfor a thorough review of the laws that stand in conflict with the independence of Parliament vis-a-vis the doctrine of separation of powers as envisaged in the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Goodall Gondwe said last week on the sidelines of the 5th All Inclusive Stakeholders Conference organised by the Public Affairs Committee (Pac) that it is baseless for MPs to claim that the parliamentary committees have been underfunded in the 2015\/2016 fiscal budget when the groups have already spent over half of the annual allocated resources.<\/p>\n
Gondwe differed with MPs, who also raised the issue during the conference, saying government allocated K8.2 billion to the National Assembly for parliamentary committee activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cEighty percent of the amount they budgeted for parliamentary has been used in half a year. That is why they don\u2019t have money for committees to meet; they want us [Treasury] to give them more money for that. We find it difficult to do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Finance Minister said Treasury does not fund the National Assembly on monthly basis as it is the case with other ministries and departments.<\/p>\n
Besides that, Gondwe said the Treasury does not dictate how the money should be spent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe give them quota of their annual budget, and they go and decide what they want to do, and that\u2019s what they do. Unfortunately, they have been spending more money on committee meetings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In general, Gondwe said the ministries give the Treasury their budget but after discussions with the relevant ministries officials, the figures are trimmed or increased and sent to Parliament for approval.<\/p>\n
He added that the funding to each ministry and government department is based on the approved figures from Parliament.<\/p>\n
Gondwe said the figures that government would be presenting in parliament shows that each ministry and government department has been funded over 50 percent between July and December 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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