{"id":8636,"date":"2021-10-30T04:31:29","date_gmt":"2021-10-30T04:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick"},"modified":"2021-10-31T04:50:59","modified_gmt":"2021-10-31T04:50:59","slug":"how-parastatals-became-sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick","title":{"rendered":"How parastatals became sick"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Malawi. <\/strong><\/span>From being reduced to mere commodities of political patronage to lacking operational and business direction \u2013 this is how most of Malawi\u2019s parastatals have fallen.<\/p>\n

And as they languish in the clutch of politicians, as they fall to a democratic culture of abuse of law and as they slip deep into misgovernance, their mother body, the Department of Statutory Corporations, seems hopeless and frightened on the job.<\/p>\n

These were some of the observations by members of the Public Appointments Committee (Pac) of Parliament during their meeting with Comptroller of Statutory Corporations, Nwazi Nthambala and her team in Lilongwe. Recounting the chaos in the statutory bodies, the MPs questioned whether she was is in control.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you in control? Or there is political interference?\u201d charged one of the members of the committee, Collins Kajawa, as he quizzed Nthambala on why National Oil Company of Malawi (Nocma) performance keeps going down and it keeps seemingly listening to no one.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is it that Nocma is becoming increasingly difficult to handle?\u201d he asked. The MPs questioned her why it has taken a year for the department to recruit a Chief Executive Officer for Nocma.<\/p>\n

Member of Parliament for Mwanza Central, Mark Katsonga and Member of Parliament for Mulanje Bale, Victor Musowa, lamented that some parastatals have become bankrupt but continue being ran on taxpayers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n

To exemplify the sickness of the parastatals, the committee cited Malawi Posts Corporation, which it said is about to lose some of its buildings because the organisation is failing to pay back the loan it acquired from a bank in China to purchase buses that are failing to bring money to the institution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder why a telecommunications company would turn into bus business. Why should we allow such a parastatal go into a wrong business? This shows the Comptroller has no powers and is just a figure head,\u201d Musowa said.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, government owes MPC over K8.7 billion in appropriation arrears for 16 years. The committee further observed that most of the organisations are becoming moribund and have fallen to abuse by politicians as some of them were formed by presidential decree way back and not an act of Parliament.<\/p>\n

Pac has demanded that this must be fixed. It has charged the Department of Statutory Corporations to initiate the process that will see Parliament come up with an act that would improve the governance and operations of the institutions.<\/p>\n

Chairperson of the committee Joyce Chitsulo ordered Nthambala and her team to speed up this process. \u201cIt is high time we changed how parastatals are ran. Politicians have been taking advantage of most of the parastatals when it comes to the appointment of CEOs, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been favouring their kinsmen, some of them without proper qualifications to run the parastatals. This should come to an end,\u201d Chitsulo charged.<\/p>\n

In her response, Nthambala informed the committee that recruitment of Nocma Chief Executive Officer is expected to take place soon after the Board concludes disciplinary hearing of former officials. She said the disciplinary hearings were scheduled for yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there are delays in concluding some disciplinary actions, it is important to note that these are matters of law. The officers have specific contracts of employment and the boards are treading carefully to avoid legal suits. Nonetheless, we should have a meaningful progress within 21 days,\u201d Nthambala said.<\/p>\n

She said her office will push to conclude appointments of Chief Executive Officer in all the parastatals where the offices are vacant. Responding to the performance of the parastatals, Nthambala pointed out that the culture of not wanting to adhere to the law is among the factors for their sickness.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracy has resulted in some people taking the law in their hands. They don\u2019t mind being in the wrong; they don\u2019t care if their companies are struggling. We have missed the meaning of democracy,\u201d Thambala said.<\/p>\n

Executive Director for Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency (Csat) Willy Kambwandira welcomed the proposal by Pac to put in place a Statutory Corporation Act.<\/p>\n

He also called for performance and functional review for all the statutory corporations to determine whether some parastatals should be closed, re-organized or allowed to continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our view this is good move to have the Statutory Corporation Act. However, we expect that the process to put in place the act will be open, participatory and inclusive.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut more importantly, it is high time that we managed the presidential powers and decrees,\u201d Kambwandira said.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Malawi<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Malawi. From being reduced to mere commodities of political patronage to lacking operational and business direction \u2013 this is how most of Malawi\u2019s parastatals have fallen. And as they languish in the clutch of politicians, as they fall to a democratic culture of abuse of law and as they slip deep into misgovernance, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":8635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,8],"tags":[233,371,234,1093,1425],"class_list":["post-8636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-homepage-english","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-malawi","tag-malawi","tag-malawi-posts-corporation","tag-public-appointments-committee"],"yoast_head":"\nHow parastatals became sick - Malawi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From being reduced to mere commodities of political patronage to lacking operational and business direction \u2013 this is ho ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How parastatals became sick\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From being reduced to mere commodities of political patronage to lacking operational and business direction \u2013 this is ho ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Malawi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-10-30T04:31:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-10-31T04:50:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/10\/img-617e2095d841e.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1694\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"833\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"How parastatals became sick\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-10-30T04:31:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-10-31T04:50:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick\"},\"wordCount\":759,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/10\/img-617e2095d841e.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Malawi\",\"Malawi\",\"Malawi Posts Corporation\",\"Public Appointments Committee\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/how-parastatals-became-sick\",\"name\":\"How parastatals became sick - 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