Even with an injunction suspending him from functioning as cabinet minister, Minister of Agriculture and Water Development, George Chaponda flew out of the country to Berlin, Germany on Thursday to attend the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) international conference.<\/p>\n
Three civil society organisations last week obtained an order suspending him from official duty until the investigation into the purchase of maize from Zambia is concluded.<\/p>\n
A move by the Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale to have the injunction vacated last week did not materialise and the court set January 31 for decision on the matter. This effectively meant the injunction as earlier obtained still stands.<\/p>\n
However, Chaponda has still travelled to Germany in his capacity as minister.<\/p>\n
The ministry\u2019s Principal Secretary, Erica Maganga, confirmed yesterday having facilitated Chaponda\u2019s trip.<\/p>\n
She was speaking to the joint parliamentary committees of Agriculture and Public Accounts which are conducting an inquiry into the maize purchase saga.<\/p>\n
When parliamentarian for Karonga Central, Frank Mwenefumbo, asked her about Chaponda\u2019s trip to Germany, Maganga initially dodged the question saying, \u201cThis can best be answered by the Office of President and Cabinet.\u201d<\/p>\n
The members however did not buy this as they insisted that they are aware that the minister was stopped from working but had gone to Germany on official duties.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026don\u2019t refer us to OPC because if we want to talk to OPC, we have their numbers and we can call it anytime and ask them. As the Principal Secretary where is the minister of agriculture and where he has got his ticket to Germany,\u201d queried Dowa East parliamentarian, Richard Chimwendo.<\/p>\n
It was a highly emotive and intense situation as the committee members pressed Maganga to tell them issues. They regularly interrupted her asking her to get straight to the point.<\/p>\n
Chimwendo said the committee needed to know if the minister has indeed gone to Germany considering that the courts suspended him because of the Zambia maize procurement issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndeed I work with the minister. But I\u2019m referring the committee to OPC because a minister\u2019s travel is facilitated by the OPC,\u201d Maganga said.<\/p>\n
But Mwenefumbo said: \u201cMadam PS you have here two former minister and deputy ministers who are aware that the one who originates a letter to the OPC for the minister to travel is the PS. It goes there for the President\u2019s approval. The reason why the honourable members are asking is whether you have written any letter for the President to approve.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe line ministry is the one who buys the ticket and processes the minister\u2019s allowance. OPC facilitates communication between line ministry and State House or presidency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
During the exchange,deputy chair of Public Accounts Committee Kamlepo Kalua implicated Maganga in facilitating Chaponda\u2019s travel to Germany.<\/p>\n
He said according to the documents he had, Maganga herself came up with an itinerary of activities at the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s indicated that at 10:30- 12:30 the minister would be in round table meeting in Berlin Germany\u2026 So you see madam the purpose of this meeting is for you to educate this committee whether you were part of this or not, if you are aware of the court injunction or not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In response Maganga confirmed that her office was involved in facilitating Chaponda\u2019s trip to Germany saying, \u201cThis was processed before Christmas holidays because the letter came much earlier. But as you have rightly said the minister hasn\u2019t been coming to the office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Government spokesperson, Nicholas Dausi said he was not aware of Chaponda\u2019s trip to Germany.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Executive Director for Centre for the Development of the People (Cedep), Gift Trapence said the three organisations are going to file a contempt of court case.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are filing a contempt of court case should we establish that Chaponda is indeed in Germany in his capacity as Minister of Agriculture because the courts suspended him from executing duties to pave way for investigations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The GFFA conference Chaponda is attending focuses on questions concerning the future of the global agri-food industry.<\/p>\n
It started on January 19, 2017 and ends today, January 21, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even with an injunction suspending him from functioning as cabinet minister, Minister of Agriculture and Water Development, George Chaponda flew out of the country to Berlin, Germany on Thursday to attend the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) international conference. Three civil society organisations last week obtained an order suspending him from official duty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39444,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39442\/revisions\/39444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}