Wa Mutharika orders MPs to debate budget

Wa Mutharika orders MPs to debate budget
By Christopher Miti
Monday August 04, 2008 [04:00]

MALAWI’S President Bingu wa Mutharika has ordered parliamentarians in that country to start debating the budget in their session today. President Wa Mutharika said the budget impasse had affected a lot of developmental programmes. “Agriculture last year slowed down because of the delay in the budget implementation. The fertiliser subsidy last year slowed down because of lack of the budget. This year some of the opposition members are still saying they want to wait until September to adopt a budget but I do not see the logic in this,” President Wa Mutharika said during the country’s fifth National Agriculture Fair in Blantyre last Thursday. He said the parliamentary session would only discuss the budget.

“I shall appear again on the television and radio in consultation with the Speaker of National Assembly. I have determined by the powers vested in me in the constitution that the meeting of parliament will start this coming Monday and I want to make it very clear this is a budget session. During the Malawi Congress Party there was a budget session, there was a session exclusively for the budget.

During the United Democratic Front, Bakili Muluzi they went for a session exclusively for the budget and I call for the budget. They are saying ‘no we want to discuss section 65 during the budget session and that so-called impasse’... it is ridiculous it is not impasse at all,” he said.

President Wa Mutharika said he would not beg the opposition members of parliament to adopt the budget because it was not his budget. He said the document was a national budget.

“I am asking opposition members of parliament that this is their duty, their obligation. We are paying them to adopt the budget, they must know this. So to try and bargain for whatever to negotiate between the budget and section 65 of the constitution is totally irresponsible because the two are not related.

Let us have the budget in the next ten days. They have already spent four weeks doing absolutely nothing. Now someone says they want another four weeks. It’s not going to happen,” President Wa Mutharika said. He said the national budget was supposed to be in place by August 15.

“The budget will be debated starting from Monday and it will end on 15th and on this day there must be a national budget in this country. All will conclude that the opposition has refused the budget and of course there will be consequences over the lack of the budget. So I’m not talking war now but I’m saying it is the obligation of the opposition members to join the government members of parliament to adopt the budget,” he said.

President Wa Mutharika said the opposition members of parliament were elected by the people to represent them in Parliament and to deliberate several matters including the budget.

“By the way I, as Republican President, I was elected under section 65 and I was not put in power by the Parliament or by the leaders of opposition. I was put in power by you people,” he said.

President Wa Mutharika said he would not negotiate anything with the opposition members of parliament for them to adopt the budget because it was their responsibility.

Malawi has been operating on a normal budget until the end of the financial year, end June 2008. The new financial year began on July 1 and the budget is yet to be passed.

Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) and Malawi Congress Party (MCP), who together form a majority in Parliament, want to remove the defecting ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers under a constitutional provision that bans floor-crossing before they can debate the budget in Parliament.