Chiefs from Lilongwe Mapuyu North Constituency on Wednesday took to task member of Parliament (MP) for the area Horace Chipuwa of Malawi Congress Party (MCP) accusing him of neglecting them in development processes.
Among others, the chiefs accused Chipuwa of neither consulting them before going to parliament nor reporting back to traditional leaders at the end of parliamentary sittings.
The chiefs leveled their accusations against the parliamentarian at an interface meeting for district council, community leaders, parliamentarians and ward councillors organised by NGO Gender Coordination Network (NGOGCN) with funding from USAid through the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
“The message from my fellow chiefs to you honourable is that you should start consulting us before going to Parliament so that you hear from us what to say in Parliament,” said Senior Group Village Head Zambo.
But Chipuwa defended himself, saying it was not true that he does not consult community leaders arguing he had previously held political meetings which were also attended by leaders of village development committees (VDCs) prior to meetings of Parliament.
“My thinking is that when we hold political meetings where we also have members of VDCs in attendance, it means we have consulted the chiefs,” he said, adding that chiefs shun away the consultative meetings which he said he had been holding with the VDCs and wondered why he was being accused of neglecting them.
