Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) officials Thursday described the third day of the demonstrations as successful and peaceful.
The demonstrations that have been taking place in Lilongwe since Tuesday, are expected to end today.
Speaking after Thursday’s protests, HRDC Vice Chairperson, Gift Trapence, thanked the protesters for patronising the demonstrations.
He urged them to maintain peace and order, especially today.
HRDC Chairperson, Timothy Mtambo, said if members of Parliament confirm Mwapasa as Malawi Police Service Inspector General, they would hold demonstrations against Mwapasa.
“If you dare confirm Mwapasa, we are ready to hold demonstrations against Parliament’s decision. We will put Mwapasa as the second person on our list of people who are not supposed to hold public offices,” Mtambo said.
HRDC has been organising demonstrations to force Malawi Electoral Commission Chairperson Justice Jane Ansah and all commissioners to resign for allegedly messing up the May 21 presidential elections.
Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Joseph Mwanamvekha presented the K1.7 Trillion budget to Parliament last month.
From the budget statement, I have noted that the budget prioritises cotton and legume production which have been allocated K1 billion and K1.85 Billion, respectively.
Are these the only crops at the heart of government agenda?
However, sugar cane has conspicuously been denied a slice of the national cake. Why? I have no answer. This year again, sugar cane has no support in the national budget even though the National Export Strategy of 2013-2018 identified this as a priority crop for export.
Finance Minister Mwanamveka
Similarly, the proposed National Export Strategy II touts sugar cane as a priority crop together with legumes.During the review of the expired export strategy, participants noted that the blueprint had several challenges inhibiting its success.
One of the bottlenecks was inadequate funding from government to drive the strategy. The implementation of the export strategy was at the mercy of development partners.
If government does not allocate adequate funds for sugar, sugar cane products and other priority activities in the national strategy, who will do so?
In 2011, exports from sugar cane products reached four percent of the country’s total exports, only third to tobacco and tea.However, for many years, it has been confined to two districts—Chikwawa and Nkhotakota—unlike other crops.
Sugar cane’s contribution to the national economy is derived from sugar and ethanol. In Brazil, India, Mauritius and other countries that are serious with sugar cane production, no single part of the crop goes to waste. Every part has value; it is a raw material for another product.These countries have heavily invested in research and development to make sugar cane a high-value crop.
They produce a cocktail of products from sugar cane, including fertiliser, electricity, plastics and carbon dioxide.
In fact, this is exactly what the National Export Strategy intended to achieve. The brains behind the strategy envisioned sugar cane production producing sugar, syrups, sweets, caramel, sweetener, ethanol, spirits, cane juice, fertiliser, animal feed, electricity, cosmetics and many more.
One of the major challenges slowing sugar cane production in Malawi is lack of extension services. Smallholder farmers grow sugar cane without technical support. These extension officers are not available simply because local universities do not extensively teach anything about sugar cane.
If government is serious about promoting sugarcane, it must seriously consider allocating funds in the 2019/20 National Budget to support the promotion of sugarcane production.The funds will help develop a team of specialists who should be providing extension services in sugar cane production.In the end, this will improve productivity and reduce poverty among the farmers.
Currently, there is growing interest in sugar cane value chain. That is why we have a new factory in Salima where smallholder growers have already started producing and supplying sugar cane.
These are the farmers who need appropriate extension services in sustainable and productive sugar cane farming.
I hope members of Parliament from sugar cane-growing districts of Nkhotakota, Salima and Chikwawa will lobby the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development for a slice of the cake to go towards promoting the crop their constituents grow for industrial use.
Some of these legislators are actually sugar cane farmers, so they are aware of what the cane farmers are going through.
Speaker of Parliament Catherine Gotani Hara has slapped two legislators with two days ban each for causing disorder in the House on Wednesday and yesterday.
The Speaker yesterday announced the suspension of Dowa East member of Parliament (MP) Richard Chimwendo Banda (Malawi Congress Party-MCP) and Blantyre City South East MP Sameer Suleman (Democratic Progressive Party-DPP) following a heated debate on disorder.
In her ruling, Hara, whom the government side accused of exercising leniency on errant opposition legislators, used Standing Order 105 (3) on Sanctions Against Disorderly Conduct which says that if a member is named, the Speaker may direct that he or she be suspended from the National Assembly for two sitting days from the time of suspension.
Speaker: Gotani Hara
She said: “The member for Dowa East has conceded that he did something wrong. The difference is that Standing Order 105 was not used. That is where the difference was and why the sergeant at arms did not come to take the member out [of the chamber].
“Today [yesterday], I did specifically order the member out. But since the member has conceded he did wrong, I, therefore, order Dowa East to be suspended just like Blantyre City South East for two days.”
Suleman provoked the wrath of the Speaker when he stood on a point of order to contribute to a question Lilongwe City South East legislator Ulemu Msungama (MCP) asked on what government planned to do with the 7 000 metric tonnes of maize that got rotten under the watch of State produce trader Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc).
Suleman, who is also chairperson of Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Irrigation, stated that the question Msungama had asked was already addressed in his committee’s report yet to be presented in the House. He, therefore, asked Msungama to wait for the same and then proceeded to provide recommendations made by his committee.
The Speaker found Suleman’s conduct disorderly.
Despite the Speaker’s intervention, Suleman continued making his point, a development that prompted Hara to stand so that the legislator, as per parliamentary protocol, could take his seat. However, Suleman did not take his seat.
The Speaker unleashed Standing Order 105 on the member to leave the House. But Suleman refused, arguing that the previous day Chimwendo Banda also ignored the Speaker’s command.
In reaction to the Speaker’s order against Suleman, the government side in the House, including Cabinet ministers, stood up in protest and challenged the sergeant at arms to a fist fight if he dared move the MP out. Suleman was seen taking off his jacket in protest to the order.
Business in the House ground to a halt for about 30 minutes before the Speaker adjourned Parliament 20 minutes earlier for lunch break normally taken at 12.30 hours.
Before being suspended, Chimwendo Banda defended himself, saying he did not go out of the House on Wednesday because First Deputy Speaker Madalitso Kazombo did not use Standing Order 105 which was used on Suleman.
Chimwendo Banda said he was ready to go out if he was ordered to do so by the Speaker using the relevant Standing Order 105.
On Wednesday afternoon, tempers flared in the House after Leader of the House Kondwani Nankhumwa moved a motion to waive relevant Standing Orders to allow for the printing of a Supplementary Order Paper.
The revised schedule was meant to allow the House to handle the business of confirming two public officers, namely Auditor General-designate Joseph Nangantani and acting Inspector General (IG) of Police Duncan Mwapasa as IG.
However, the motion was shot down by the opposition through a voice vote. This forced the government side to push for division which was granted, but chaos erupted after ringing the bell for five minutes so that all members who were not in the chamber should get in. In an interview on Wednesday, Nankhumwa said they were not satisfied with Kazombo’s ruling that there was disorder in the House because the unfolding events were normal in Parliament, especially when sticky issues are on the floor.
Unknown thugs are reportedly attacked Counsel Pempho Likongwe, one of the lawyers representing Malawi Congress Party (MCP) President Dr Lazarus Chakwera, in the ongoing Constitutional court.
Confirming the thuggery, another member of Chakwera’s legal team, Counsel Lalley Mita, has said the attack happened last night right at Likongwe’s residence in Blantyre.
MCP lawyer; Pempho Likongwe
Counsel Mita has said the thugs managed to bolt with a laptop, a briefcase and mobile phones and Counsel Likongwe got physically hurt in the process.
However, Counsel Mita has refused to speculate that the attack is in connection with the case involving Dr Lazarus Chakwera, an opposition party leader.
Lately, there have been attacks on the property of members of Malawi Congress Party (MCP); latest cases being petrol bombing of the office of MCP Vice president, Sidik Mia and the vehicle of the party’s Director of campaign, Honouble Moses Kunkuyu; both in Blantyre
President Arthur Peter Mutharika, who is also Commander-In-Chief of the Malawi Defence Force (MDF), has promoted two military officers, Corporal George Salimu and Lance Corporal Gift Tatani Nkhoma, who went missing in DRC but managed to return to the camp during a peace keeping mission George Salimu has been promoted to Staff Sergeant while Gift Tatani Nkhoma has risen to Sergeant. The two were part of the team that got ambushed in DRC on November 12 2018, resulting into the death of six Malawian soldiers.
During the operation, five soldiers went missing, three of which-who included Salimu and Tatani have since returned. Decorating the two at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe on Wednesday, President Mutharika described the two as “symbols of courage and heroism”.
Said President Mutharika:“And we would like to honour them today. They are the symbols of peace that we all love as a country. I am proud that we have a patriotic military that is ready to defend peace in this country and elsewhere. This patriotic defense for peace is seen everywhere.”
The Malawi leader also seized the moment to commend the country’s security forces for defending the peace during violent demontrations tha Human Rights Defenders Coalition, in collaboration with opposition political leaders continue to organize in the country.
“In this country, there are people who have decided to ignore all the democratic and legal processes that we have built since we rejected political terrorism and victimization of innocent Malawians 25 years ago. These people are vandalizing schools and terrorizing school children; attacking innocent people in their homes; breaking cars of innocent Malawians and stealing from shops in organized looting. They are taking away our property.
“I would like to call upon Opposition leaders that, for once, just for once, they must think about this country instead of thinking of themselves. The destruction we have caused in the last few months will take us years to rebuild this country. Once again, I want to thank and commend our security forces for defending the peace of defenseless people. Keep it up! You have shown that the peace keeping you are doing in other countries is an extension of our peace loving spirit. To all Malawians, let me say let us continue being peace lovers,” he said.
Malawi Defence Force is rated as one of the best peace keepers in the world.APM decorates two DRC Peace Keeping heros: These are symbols of courage and heroism
President Arthur Peter Mutharika, who is also Commander-In-Chief of the Malawi Defence Force (MDF), has promoted two military officers, Corporal George Salimu and Lance Corporal Gift Tatani Nkhoma, who went missing in DRC but managed to return to the camp during a peace keeping mission.
George Salimu has been promoted to Staff Sergeant while Gift Tatani Nkhoma has risen to Sergeant. The two were part of the team that got ambushed in DRC on November 12 2018, resulting into the death of six Malawian soldiers.
During the operation, five soldiers went missing, three of which-who included Salimu and Tatani have since returned. Decorating the two at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe on Wednesday, President Mutharika described the two as “symbols of courage and heroism”.
Said President Mutharika:“And we would like to honour them today. They are the symbols of peace that we all love as a country. I am proud that we have a patriotic military that is ready to defend peace in this country and elsewhere. This patriotic defense for peace is seen everywhere.” The Malawi leader also seized the moment to commend the country’s security forces for defending the peace during violent demontrations tha Human Rights Defenders Coalition, in collaboration with opposition political leaders continue to organize in the country.
“In this country, there are people who have decided to ignore all the democratic and legal processes that we have built since we rejected political terrorism and victimization of innocent Malawians 25 years ago. These people are vandalizing schools and terrorizing school children; attacking innocent people in their homes; breaking cars of innocent Malawians and stealing from shops in organized looting. They are taking away our property.
“I would like to call upon Opposition leaders that, for once, just for once, they must think about this country instead of thinking of themselves. The destruction we have caused in the last few months will take us years to rebuild this country. Once again, I want to thank and commend our security forces for defending the peace of defenseless people. Keep it up! You have shown that the peace keeping you are doing in other countries is an extension of our peace loving spirit. To all Malawians, let me say let us continue being peace lovers,” he said.
Malawi Defence Force is rated as one of the best peace keepers in the world.
