Kanyongolo faults JB on UAE maize donation

Chancellor College associate law professor Edge Kanyongolo says President Joyce Banda flouted the Constitution when she directed that People’s Party (PP) candidates in parliamentary elections should be involved in distributing 13 500 metric tonnes of maize government received from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in February.

Kanyongolo argued that a donation to government should be handled through government channels.

“From the perspective of constitutionalism, the practice of members of a particular political party distributing public services or goods instead of government officials is unacceptable.

“In my opinion, such a practice undermines the spirit of Section 193 of the Constitution which seeks to prohibit the deployment of public resources, whether they be financial, material or human resources, for the purposes of promoting or undermining any political party or members of a political party or interest group,” he said.

Kanyongolo said the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security would have been the most appropriate agency to distribute the maize.

Government spokesperson Brown Mpinganjira was not available to respond to our inquiries.

Public relations officer for the Office of the President and Cabinet Arthur Chipenda said he could only deal with our questions tomorrow.

The UAE, responding to Banda’s plea for food aid, donated the maize through the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation.

But the President directed that the donation be handled by her initiative Mudzi Transformation Trust (MTT) and PP candidates to identify beneficiaries and distribute the relief maize.

MTT executive director Macward Themba said the trust was engaged by government to oversee the distribution of the maize.

MTT is a well-wishers-funded initiative launched by President Banda to help rural Malawians to own decent homes.

Themba said his organisation has the capacity to identify beneficiaries and distribute the maize despite using PP parliamentary aspirants.

He said the maize would benefit 675 000 families, translating into about four million  Malawians.

He said beneficiaries are identified by traditional leaders.

In February 2014, Themba told Weekend Nation that PP aspirants who were collecting the maize were helping with transport and other logistics.

The Department of Disaster Management Affairs, which is responsible for emergencies including the distribution of relief food, said it is not handling the maize from UAE.

The department’s chief relief and rehabilitation officer Dyce Kapumula Nkhoma said it is distributing maize to people affected by floods from the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) bought by government.