{"id":67628,"date":"2018-06-27T10:05:04","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T08:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=67628"},"modified":"2018-06-27T10:05:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T08:05:04","slug":"inspector-generals-fate-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/06\/27\/inspector-generals-fate-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspector General\u2019s fate today"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY MACDONALD THOM:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Members of Parliament are today expected to discuss the appointment of Rodney Jose as Inspector General (IG) of Police.<\/p>\n

President Peter Mutharika appointed Jose as acting IG in April, replacing Lexten Kachama who is currently on leave, pending retirement on June 30.<\/p>\n

According to a notice appearing on the Order Paper of Monday, June 25 2018, Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security, Cecilia Chazama, will bring the issue in the House.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Honourable Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security to move that the House do confirm the appointment of Mr Rodney Stephen Jose as Inspector General of Police in accordance with Section 154(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi,\u201d reads the notice.<\/p>\n

The Section states that the IG shall be appointed by the President and confirmed by the National Assembly, by a majority of the Members present and voting.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026but the Public Appointments Committee may at any time inquire as to the competence of the person so appointed to carry out the duties of that office and as to such other questions as may have direct bearing on the performance of the duties of that office,\u201d reads part of the section.<\/p>\n

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have been pressing Mutharika to reverse the decision of appointing Jose as IG. This is one on the issues they raised in a petition delivered on April 27.<\/p>\n

Last week, the CSOs had a meeting with Leader of Opposition, Lazarus Chakwera,<\/a> where they also asked the opposition to block Jose\u2019s appointment after his name was mentioned in a report on the 2011 murder of Robert Chasowa, a fourth-year engineering student at the University of Malawi\u2019s The Polytechnic.<\/p>\n

In an interview Tuesday, one of the CSO leaders, Timothy Mtambo, insists Jose should not be confirmed on the position.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople occupying high positions should have clean records. Mr Jose Chasowa\u2019s murder. He has not been cleared. We asked President Peter Mutharika to reverse the decision. But since the name is being taken to Parliament, we ask all MPs, who believe in protecting the lives of people, not to confirm him,\u201d Mtambo said.<\/p>\n

Mtambo, however, said government should be ready with more candidates for the position.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going into elections year. We cannot go there with another acting IG. We want Parliament to confirm an IG in this meeting. Government should have more than one candidate for the position. In the event that one is rejected, the House should consider another name [on the list],\u201d Mtambo said.<\/p>\n

Before Kachama\u2019s confirmation in 2015, then acting IG, Paul Kanyama, in February the same year, resigned from his position at a time the MPs were in Parliament debating his appointment.<\/p>\n

After slightly over an hour into the debate, and upon hearing that Kanyama had announced his resignation, the MPs discontinued the exercise.<\/p>\n

Parliament in 2006 rejected late Mary Nangwale as IG after former president, the late Bingu wa Mutharika, appointed her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY MACDONALD THOM: Members of Parliament are today expected to discuss the appointment of Rodney Jose as Inspector General (IG) of Police. President Peter Mutharika appointed Jose as acting IG in April, replacing Lexten Kachama who is currently on leave, pending retirement on June 30. According to a notice appearing on the Order Paper of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67628","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\/67628","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=67628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67632,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67628\/revisions\/67632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}