Supreme Court favours Khato, dismisses CSOs
The Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal has dismissed an application by Youth and Society (YAS) and Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) to replace Malawi Law Society (MLS) in the Salima- Lilongwe Water Project case.
In a ruling dated December 22 2017, Supreme Court of Appeal judge Lovemore Chikopa said the wishes of both CHRR and YAS have not been granted because at the time of making the application, whatever proceedings had existed between MLS and the respondents, Khato Holdings, had ceased to exist after leave had expired and there was no renewal.
The judge also said the application for extension of time cannot be granted as both YAS and CHRR have no standing to bring the application and are not yet to become parties to the proceedings in respect of whom the order was sought aside from the fact that they did not have a good reason on the basis of which extension could be granted.
Reacting to the ruling in a telephone interview on Sunday, CHRR executive director Timothy Mtambo said they would fully comment after meeting their lawyer.
He said: “I think for now we cannot say much because we have not met with our legal counsel yet. But that is the purpose of justice, it has all sorts of outcomes.”
Mtambo said they would decide on the way forward on the matter after analysing the ruling.
MLS wanted the High Court to review a decision by Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) to award Khato Holdings a contract for the project before an Enviromental and Social Impact Assessment was done.
However, in October, Chikopa dismissed the case stating all parties in the matter before the High Court ceased to exist upon the expiry or lapsing of the time MLS should have filed substantive summons for leave for judicial review.
But in an application to the Supreme Court, YAS executive director Charles Kajoloweka, through lawyer Bright Theu, argued that since Chikopa’s decision, MLS has not taken any steps to have the matter prosecuted.
The civil society organisation also wanted the court to extend time within which to lodge the matter before a full court for the reversal, variation or setting aside of the decision of the single appeal judge, Chikopa.
This proposal to pump water from lake Malawi sounds like a very good idea on paper but in reality it is not…..in fact in the next few years Malawians will realise that this was just another gimmick for those in power to make a fortune out of it….
I know for a fact that most Malawians suffer from logic deficiency, so I will try to make a few points below to try to jog your memory….
First of all mine is a question, does those people who are advocating for this project know how much electric power would be required to pump water all the way from Salima to Lilongwe?
I know this sounds like a silly question to ask but, as a country we are failing to generate enough power at the moment to serve every household let alone our industries, so where on earth are we going to get the extra amount of power to pump water from the lake?
And let me remind every Malawian that the excuse we are being given for the nonstop blackouts in our country is that there is no enough water in lake Malawi to generate power at Mkula and Tedzani falls, and yet they want to pump more water out of the same lake and expect to generate enough electricity at the same time……where is the common sense here….
We are also being told of another project on Linthipe river in Dedza to create a dam for the same purpose of supplying water to the city of Lilongwe, how much water does Lilongwe city need to justify these two enormous water projects to run concurrently?
Is this not the reason why our country has remained so poor for 50 years, because we are being led by corrupt leaders who always put the priorities of our country upside down for their benefit?
Please stop this Salima water project now and sort out the electricity issue for our country to develop……this is the first priority…..
This proposal to pump water from lake Malawi sounds like a very good idea on paper but in reality it is not…..in fact in the next few years Malawians will realise that this was just another gimmick for those in power to make a fortune out of it….
I know for a fact that most Malawians suffer from logic deficiency, so I will try to make a few points below to try to jog your memory….
First of all mine is a question, does those people who are advocating for this project know how much electric power would be required to pump water all the way from Salima to Lilongwe?
I know this sounds like a silly question to ask but, as a country we are failing to generate enough power at the moment to serve every household let alone our industries, so where on earth are we going to get the extra amount of power to pump water from the lake?
And let me remind every Malawian that the excuse we are being given for the nonstop blackouts in our country is that there is no enough water in lake Malawi to generate power at Mkula and Tedzani falls, and yet they want to pump more water out of the same lake and expect to generate enough electricity at the same time……where is the common sense here….
We are also being told of another project on Linthipe river in Dedza to create a dam for the same purpose of supplying water to the city of Lilongwe, how much water does Lilongwe city need to justify these two enormous water projects to run concurrently?
Is this not the reason why our country has remained so poor for 50 years, because we are being led by corrupt leaders who always put the priorities of our country upside down for their benefit?
Please stop this Salima water project now and sort out the electricity issue for our country to develop……this is the first priority…..
You are absolutely right Mbonga, apparently…….they are also exploring oil in the same lake Malawi with a hope of finding large deposits of oil which I guess they will be extracting alongside the water pumping project…..a clueless leadership we have in our country is costing us so much, some of the loans taken to fund these useless projects will have to be paid back by not less than three generations to come and I don’t know what those generations will say about our level of intelligence…..pure anyani wanthu