MP speaks against ‘rubber-stamping’ budgets
Nkhata Bay North m e m b e r o f Parliament (MP) Ephraim Mganda Chiume (People’s Party-PP) says budget meetings in the National Assembly are giving Malawians a raw deal because most MPs are passive and merely “rubber-stamping” the financial plans.
Chiume, a Cabinet minister during the administrations of Bingu wa Mutharika (deceased) and Joyce Banda, said he had observed that most MPs do not seriously scrutinise facts and figures in the proposed budgets.
The MP made the observations in his contribution to debate on the Mid-year Budget Review Statement Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodall Gondwe presented in Parliament last Friday.
He said he has observed the trait of passiveness and a lack of tenacity among MPs in all administrations, right from the country’s first Cabinet under founding president Hastings Kamuzu Banda during the one-party rule to date.
Said Chiume: “What we are doing—and I mean all of us, collectively [on both the government and opposition benches]—is that we are merely rubber-stamping the budget. The House is not truly scrutinising the budget as expected.”
In his contribution, Chiume also suggested that the fertiliser and seeds being distributed to people nationwide under the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp) need to be adjusted to take into consideration climate change realities that no longer subscribe to the old notion that rain starts falling in the Southern Region before it moves on to the Central and Northern Regions.
