Leader of the House Williams Richard Chimwendo Banda says lack of financial resource, weak parliamentary oversight and failure by private sector mainly the banks to provide resources in terms of loans to the Members of Parliament can be other main reasons why government has missed out on the Sudan deal that could help Malawi in boosting its forex reserves.
Chimwendo Banda was reacting to a report that was tabled in Parliament on Monday by the Parliamentary Committee on Trade and Industry that faulted government for not being ‘serious’ on the trade matters.
According to the report that was led in Parliament by the Committee’s Chairperson, Paul Nkhoma, government has only made K1.4 billion out of estimated K9 billion.
Nkhoma said Malawi only supplied 1.2 Metric Tonnes out of 1.8 Metric Tonnes and faced 465 000 Metric Tonnes deficit.
But in his remarks, Chimwendo Banda said the report presented in Parliament has exposed the weakness of parliamentary oversight to institutions of governance for not holding them accountable for their actions on matters that are very critical to the society while commending the Civil Society mainly the FND for writing the Speaker’s office on the matter.
“The report has exposed our weaknesses in how we handle matters of accountability and oversight through our various committees in this Chamber. It is high time that committees must not just rush to form joint parliamentary committees without effectively presenting alternative proposals and holding those in power accountable on serious matters like these.
“Therefore, I would like to commend the Forum for National Development (FND) for being proactive and play its watchdog responsibility for having keen interest in matters that borders on governance. I would like also to thank the Speaker, Right Honourable Gotani Hara as well for taking a good step to allow relevant committee body to look into the matter,” said Chimwendo Banda who is also Minister of Local Government, Unity and Culture.
Chimwendo also bemoaned the tendency of the private sector mainly the banks for not allowing politicians to get loans and help in opening farms in this country on the notion that politicians are politically exposed which is untrue.
In his remarks, Nkhoma said even the maize flour that was exported to South Sudan was below consumption standard as it was rotten.
“The committee was disappointed that the Ministry of Agriculture did nothing and it continues to do nothing to organize farmers to produce and fulfill the export order, not only for South Sudan, but many other cases.
“The ministry left Ideal Group Limited to contract farmers to grow maize and other products for export. Ideal Company was too small to be entrusted with mobilizing the growing of crops that can enable us to export 180000 MT of cereals per year to Sudan,” said Nkhoma in his report.
He also asked government to fast track the issues of mega farms that will help in the future in matters of capacity.
