Malawi: MPs Must Scrutinise Government Projects With Better Information

Malawi’s MPs have been ordered back to the classroom, and the First Deputy Speaker has made it clear that there is no room for ignorance in the House.

Victor Musowa made his blunt call on Monday, October 19, when he opened the fourth and final intake of the Parliamentary Training Programme (PTP) at the Malawi School of Government in Lilongwe.

“Honourable Members, training lies at the core of the agenda of the Right Honourable Speaker for this parliamentary term: to ensure effective and impactful oversight,” he told the packed hall.

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Musowa said the course gives MPs the know-how to do their jobs properly, from making laws to holding the government to account.

And he warned that the lessons must show up on the floor of the House, in committee rooms and in constituencies, not just on a certificate.

He painted a picture of the modern lawmaker that the public now expects: someone who strides into the chamber armed with tech savvy and a firm grip on how laws are made.

“The world out there is looking at a legislator who walks into the chamber with enough knowledge on technology, enough knowledge on legislative processes, enough knowledge on the creation of the law,” he said.

And he had a message for MPs who let the government off the hook. Musowa urged them to question why similar projects can come with wildly different price tags.

“For us to deliberate to that level, we need information, we need ideas, we need skills and that is why we are here, back to class to learn,” he declared.

Parliament, he insisted, must be a hotbed of informed debate, with MPs zeroing in on development issues and scrutinising every government project.

He also claimed the House has already got through almost half of its planned work for this period and is on course to have eight reports ready when it resumes on November 9.

And the public is watching, he said.

“Come next sitting of Parliament, we are going to have reports of all the areas, even reports from institutions that people don’t know that we are already consulting them,” he said.

Malawi School of Government Kanengo Campus director Christine Siame didn’t mince her words either.

“If they don’t know what they are supposed to be doing, certainly it will be a problem. It will be a challenge even for the development of our nation,” she warned.

The training programme dates back to the early 1990s and is designed to sharpen MPs’ debating and decision-making skills, and to strengthen democracy in the process.