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Malawi CSOs speak on cashgate report, Parliament meet

Mhone: Parliament has been sidelined
Mhone: Parliament has been sidelined

The Civil Society Grand Coalition Governance has appealed to government to honour its word of releasing the forensic audit report without failure by Friday.

The coalition made the appeal at a press briefing held on Tuesday in Blantyre.

Leader of the grouping, Voice Mhone, stressed that delayed release of the forensic audit report whose summary was sent to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is alienation of Malawians.

“Parliament has equally been sidelined to debate these issues and we wonder for whose benefit was the audit report? Who is in charge of this country? Why excluding our governance institutions and the people of Malawi? Is this democracy?” he asked.

Apart from calling on President Joyce Banda to convene Parliament before February 24 2014 to discuss the report, the coalition also raised concern about the slow pace of the cashgate cases despite assurances that there will be special measures to speed up the cases.

“At the pace we are going, it will take years before the truth is known.

“This is a raw deal to Malawians who, as we fear, will go to the polls on 20 May 2014 without knowing who is who in this looting of public funds and may end up entrusting the same leaders who are actually at the centre of cashgate without any eventual and consequent recourse,” said Mhone.

Minister of Information Brown Mpinganjira was not immediately available for comment, but Leader of the House Henry Phoya told The Nation that Parliament will only be convened in April due to lack of funds.

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5 Comments

  1. Lets go to the streets and demonstrate .While they are campaigning we can have a parallel demos.. They should know in this time and age they can can not hide

  2. Hon Duncan Phoya is not saying the truth. The plan is let the issue die before the polls on 20th May 2014. Government is hiding something for sure. But also with poorly held primaries, the PP has more enemies amongst its parliamentarians such that they are afraid that convening parliament would be digging own grave because such a session will be explosive. I support the initiative by CSOs and would even support calls for parliament to meet forthwith. The excuse that Parliament/ government has no money does not hold because for all we know JB is gallivanting all over the country spending lots of money in the process. More pressure is needed and that is why I support Voice Mhone and his colleagues. Malawians let us wake up from the slumber and demand this report.

  3. Malawians lets give a dead line on cash gate issues. We dont want the incoming Government to inherit such issues as they will retard planning and development. Otherwise the new President and new Government will be talking the JB language ‘ ndapeza kashigeti yokhayokha mundiyembekezere miyezi 18. By the way is 18 months probation period for JB’s still on

  4. CSO act now and call for national stay away until the report is published to the public. There’s no reason preference is given to white people to edit the report to protect their cash cow.

  5. The government will issue the forensic audit report when it is ready. There is a protocol to be observed and other technicalities to be considered. We can’t have a government ran like a spaza shop to please certain individuals.

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