{"id":67691,"date":"2018-06-28T10:45:48","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T08:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=67691"},"modified":"2018-06-28T10:45:48","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T08:45:48","slug":"csos-want-action-on-dpp-aspirants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/06\/28\/csos-want-action-on-dpp-aspirants\/","title":{"rendered":"CSOs want action on DPP aspirants"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY ALICK PONJE:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Human rights activists Timothy Mtambo and Gift Trapence, acting as concerned citizens, have engaged a law firm to demand that government should discipline civil servants who are vying for political positions in political parties contrary to Civil Service Regulations.<\/p>\n

Fliers have emerged depicting various public servants expressing interest to contend at the forthcoming Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) elective convention.<\/p>\n

This is despite that the law demands that civil servants vying for positions in political parties should first resign from public office before officially declaring their interest.<\/p>\n

In a letter to the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC), on behalf of the two activists, Bullen and Associates argue that some civil servants have not complied with the requirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur clients who are concerned citizens have instructed us that they have noted with concern that some civil servants, namely Charles Mhango who is the Attorney General but who did not opt to be a Cabinet minister, Chimwemwe Chipungu who is the Chief Director of Safe Motherhood, Hebrews Misomali who is working at Safe Motherhood, Major Rodrick Mkaka who is the Controller of Security Services at Escom, Maria Mainja who is working as Public Events Officer and others whose names will be furnished later have started campaigning and have expressed interest to contest for positions in registered political parties before resigning from civil service contrary to the law of the land,\u201d the letter reads in part.<\/p>\n

It is copied to the office of the Attorney General and the Civil Service Commission.<\/p>\n

It adds that Mtambo and Trapence have instructed the law firm to demand that the Chief Secretary should discipline the said civil servants within three days from Tuesday; failing which they will commence a judicial review.<\/p>\n

In a separate interview Wednesrday, Trapence said while the contestants have the right to political participation, they must also respect the laws of Malawi.<\/p>\n

He said having politicians who are also civil servants has the potential of interfering with the operations of the civil service.<\/p>\n

Trapence said: \u201cIt is a precedent that we are trying to set. We have had cases before where officials who are civil servants resign from their positions to join active politics. This is a basic requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chief Secretary to the Government, Lloyd Muhara, could not be reached for his reaction to the activists\u2019 demands.<\/p>\n

However, government spokesperson, Nicholas Dausi, who is also Chairperson of the upcoming DPP convention, said while he could not comment on cases of other officials who have been mentioned in the letter, he sees nothing wrong with Mhango vying for a political position.<\/p>\n

He argued that, since 1964, there have been Attorneys General who doubled as ministers of Justice\u2014which is a political position\u2014and that no one has ever had an issue with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for others, it would not be right for me to say something because they have not officially declared their interest, which will be through the submission of nomination forms. It is only when they do that that I can comment as chairperson of the convention,\u201d Dausi said.<\/p>\n

On his part, Mhango said he was appointed Attorney General when he was already holding the legal affairs position in DPP and that he did not resign from the position afterwards.<\/p>\n

He also argued that, under Section 98 of the Constitution, there is nothing wrong with someone holding a political position while also holding the position of Attorney General as the attorney can also be a Cabinet minister.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Mainja said she would only comment after seeing the CSOs\u2019 letter. She promised to come back to us but had not done so by the time we went to press.<\/p>\n

We did not manage to get comments from Chipungu and Mkaka as their mobile phones went unanswered on several attempts. We could also not get hold of Misomali.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the activists, through the same law firm, have also demanded that OPC should reverse the decision to appoint Harold Mwala as Auditor General apparently because the appointment did not comply with the Public Audit Act.<\/p>\n

Mwala is set to replace Stephenson Kamphasa whose contract expires at the end of this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY ALICK PONJE: Human rights activists Timothy Mtambo and Gift Trapence, acting as concerned citizens, have engaged a law firm to demand that government should discipline civil servants who are vying for political positions in political parties contrary to Civil Service Regulations. Fliers have emerged depicting various public servants expressing interest to contend at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67691","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\/67691","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=67691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67693,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67691\/revisions\/67693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}