Build legislators capacity—Speaker

Speaker of the National Assembly, Catherine Gotani- Hara, has said newly elected members of Parliament (MPs) need more capacity-building training for them to execute their duties efficiently.

She said this during the of orientation of first-time MPs in the National Assembly, some three months after Malawians went to the polls.

“What we have done is that we have targeted members of Parliament who are in the chamber for the first time. After an assessment was done, it was discovered that we don’t give extra-capacity building training to some of our members, yet such training is key to effective execution of responsibilities,” she said.

Malawi Parliament and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association facilitated the post-election orientation last week, with 45 first-time lawmakers making it to the training.

It covered such areas as standards of public office, parliamentary ethics, best practices for legislative scrutiny and how best to represent t constituencies.