When it comes to anything to do with their interests, our Members of Parliament (MPs) will go to great lengths to ensure it happens in their likeness.
For instance, if it concerns hiking the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), they will be united in Parliament and remove any bottlenecks along the way in terms of deliberations towards that goal.
They will shower the programme with praise, as though we do not already know that it is one of the most abused funds in the country.
They will brag that CDF is a game-changer, even though we are all aware of how little transformation it brings to communities, despite the billions allocated and subsequently disbursed in the name of the programme.
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Its utilisation is highly skewed.
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Within CDF, there are resources meant to be used as bursaries for needy students in the constituencies. Some lawmakers never fulfil this obligation.
CDF is another wasteful programme that should never have been introduced in the first place, much like the Affordable Inputs Programme, which has never made economic sense.
But we all know the background of both.
They were created as political agency programmes, aimed at consolidating the support of those in power at the time.
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However, those who took over afterwards cannot get rid of them because of the same politics.
While CDF was officially promoted as a means to decentralise development and address local needs, the true political motivation by the late former president Bingu wa Mutharika was to appease MPs and solidify his political support.
By giving MPs a fund they could control, Mutharika essentially ensured that they had a direct stake in his government’s success.
MPs use the funds to implement development projects in their constituencies, which, in turn, helped them build political support among their voters.
At the time of CDF’s introduction, Mutharika was facing internal party struggles and opposition both from within his own party and from rival political groups.
By offering MPs this financial tool, he created a form of patronage that made it harder for them to oppose him, as they now had a tangible resource to distribute to their constituents.
Giving MPs control over the fund also helped Mutharika maintain centralised control over local resources, despite the decentralising rhetoric, which continues to this day.
Our MPs are well aware of the reality surrounding CDF, but they will always be united in pushing for more resources for the programme, even if more important areas are suffering.
They are inclined to support something that will ultimately benefit them.
That is why the provision in the Political Parties Act regarding handouts will never be practical with the current crop of MPs.
In fact, it is very unlikely that this section of the law will ever work in our lifetime.
The regulations, which we all discuss, are just a small part of the bigger picture.
Well, they are essential for the full implementation of the Act, but it is also possible to use the substantive provisions in the meantime.
Sometimes, laws requiring regulations are deliberately left with gaps so that their full implementation becomes impossible.
Already, the Act mandates political parties to declare their funding sources, but to date, they are non-committal in fulfilling this obligation.
Declaring their funding sources does not require any regulations, but because we know they have a lot to hide, the parties will not freely and proactively declare who gave them resources.
They know it would be easy for us to trace if the funders have been given government contracts, which often happens as a form of appreciation.
Some MPs have already previously said in Parliament that they are uncomfortable with the banning of handouts, apparently because they are afraid of those without resources for campaigning ahead of elections resorting to tactics that merely win over voters.
In other words, they were admitting that without issuing handouts— essentially a form of bribing voters—they are unlikely to win elections, as they do not have progressive ideas for development.
We have Section 65 of the Constitution, which compels the Speaker of Parliament to declare vacant the seats of MPs who cross the floor, but it has never been applied in recent memory because MPs always protect each other.
Even the recall provision, which was scrapped from our statutes but was recommended for reinstatement by the Special Law Commission, is being ignored because it directly affects lawmakers.
Several recommendations, including those that call for a President to seek the permission of an opposition political party before appointing any of the party’s members to Cabinet, are also being ignored.
When it comes to initiatives and laws that directly affect them, our MPs will do everything in the book to ensure they are the ultimate beneficiaries, even at the expense of the entire country.
