The cobweb in Chiradzulu saga
Hon Folks, Minister of Local Government Kondwani Nankhumwa has the power to invoke Section 21 of the Local Government Act and suspend the district council of Chiradzulu.
He warned councillors to cease harassing district commissioner Memory Kaleso but, like chauvinistic pigs in their pristine, they are hell-bent to make her dance to their tune or beat.
We heard last week Thursday they closed the DC’s office. As of Monday this week, operations of the entire district council were virtually brought to a standstill as offices were closed and vacated.
This cannot be the development these councillors were elected to spearhead. They are not serving the public interest. They are not adhering to their statutory duties of maintaining peace and security, either. Instead, they are actually threatening the peace.
But while their buffoonery is obvious, Nankhumwa realises that it is steeped in politics and that he is in the same boat as the miscreants, the ruling DPP.
He also realises that the councillors, in essence, are promulgating the doctrine of the supremacy of the party in government which the National Executive Committee of the DPP has all along invoked to make parastatals, traditional leaders and civil servants pander to the whims of chipani cholamula (the ruling party).
Chiradzulu has three political heavyweights—Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism Joseph Mwanamvekha; Minister of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development Henry Mussa; and Minister of Education, Science and Technology Dr. Emmanuel Fabiano.
As MPs, the ministers are non-voting members of the council. So too are chiefs. Unlike them all, councillors are voting members. In that context, the DC, as a civil servant, relates with them on matters of using scarce resources to develop the district and ensuring the prevalence of peace and tranquility.
But in as far as use of government allowances, vehicles and other resources allocated to her office is concerned—the bone of contention, we hear—she has to follow laid down systems in the Civil Service.
Chiradzulu may have the majority, or even all councillors, DPP. It also may have the majority, or even all MPs, DPP. The DC is a civil servant, not a politician and the laws of the land require of civil servants to be non-partisan in the execution of their duties.
In any case, government is supposed to serve all the people in a district without regard to their political leanings. If a DC for Chiradzulu—a DPP stronghold–must provide transport or allowance to councillors for attending a party rally, it follows that a DC for Dowa–an MCP stronghold–must provide transport and allowances for councillors attending an MCP rally.
Parliament allows for the spending of public funds for intended purposes and supporting the activities of a political party or facilitating the attendance of councillors in political rallies is not, and has never been, one of those intended purposes.
The problem is that from the days of Kamuzu, the ruling party asserts its supremacy over the government itself and abuses public resources. No party champions separation of powers while in government.
The DPP recently extorted K10 million from the troubled Lilongwe Water Board for its blue night fund-raiser. The ruling party always uses MBC as if it were a party broadcaster, making it air adverts without paying for them and preventing the opposition access.
It would be hypocrisy for DPP leaders who abuse public resources in the name of the supremacy of the ruling party to condemn, let alone discipline the Chiradzulu councillors.
In Malawi, we may all be equal before the law but crimes committed in the name of the ruling party, including violence, go unpunished.
Probably Nankhumwa realises the case of the mischief of Chiradzulu councillors is cobwebbed by the doctrine of the supremacy of the ruling party and anyone trying to intervene will, like a fly on a cobweb, get entangled.
