In a dramatic turn of events, the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture has disclosed that it will take up the East Bridge fertiliser deal inquiry to establish what happened for the government to sign the deal in the first place.
Committee chairperson Sameer Suleman told The Daily Times that they would summon Ministry of Agriculture officials and other stakeholders who played a role in the deal.
The development comes at a time the Public Accounts Committee (Pac) halted the inquiry, saying it was satisfied with documents the Attorney General’s office provided to them.
“Since the Public Accounts Committee has failed to proceed with the inquiry, while claiming that no money exchanged hands, the Agriculture Committee of Parliament will take it from there to hear from the involved stakeholders on what really happened.
“Malawians are looking for answers on why the Ministry of Agriculture signed the deal when it doesn’t deal in commercial transactions and Malawians also want answers on why the government handpicked East Bridge instead of allowing proper processes to take place,” Suleman said.
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He said calling for an independent inquiry would be difficult during this time, such that committee members want to use its normal meetings to summon those involved to ask them questions on the deal.
“At the moment, requesting for an inquiry would be difficult for some reasons. As such, the committee will summon the officials through our normal meetings to get the answers,” Suleman said.
Meanwhile, Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace National Coordinator Boniface Chibwana has commended the committee for resuscitating the matter.
“This is what we expected. The inquiry into East Bridge ought to have continued without any delay irrespective of whatever preliminary information that was given to the Public Accounts Committee. The decision by the Agriculture Committee is welcome and just confirms the earlier fears we had after Pac halted the process.
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“The general public is interested in knowing if processes outlined in the Public Finance Management Act were followed. We should be a country that, for once, follows laws we enact and Parliament should be the first one in following the laws.
“The way the inquiry was stopped was suspicious. We need to get to the bottom of the issue so that a repeat of the same is avoided in future,” Chibwana said.
However, Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency Executive Director Willy Kambwandira has described the development as both good and bad news to Malawians.
“It is good because Malawians want to know the truth about this attempted malpractice. It is our expectation that this is not one of those ceremonial inquiries we have seen before. We hope that this is not just public perception management to fool Malawians,” Kambwandira said.
In terms of the bad side of the move, he said Malawians may lose trust in lawmaker-instigated inquiries.
“As such, we expect them to undertake this investigation with the highest levels of transparency and accountability. Otherwise, Malawians are losing trust in these inquiries because they drain public resources,” Kambwandira said.
