Speaker Chimunthu Banda impressed

Speaker of the Malawi National Assembly Henry Chimunthu Banda, MP. Pic by Malawi Digest.

By Lucy Liponda

Newly elected Speaker of the Malawi National Assembly Henry Chimunthu Banda has described the recent adjourned budget session of Parliament as the most successful in the country’s recent history.

Speaker Chimunthu Banda was speaking in an exclusive interview with Malawi Digest to summarise deliberations in the House during the six weeks the house has been sitting.

In the interview, Chimunthu Banda said that Malawians should be proud for choosing better Members of Parliament during the recent Presidential and Parliamentary elections held in May.

“Even the public that witnessed and followed deliberations in the House would agree with the Speaker that this was one of the most successful Parliamentary sessions in recent years,” he said.

Chimunthu Banda, who is also legislator for Nkhotakota North Constituency said that as head of the legislature, he is proud of the kind of business that the House conducted in the just ended session.

“Like any other Malawian, am very pleased with the kind of business House managed to complete in the just ended session,” he said.

This was the first Parliamentary session presided over by Speaker Henry Chimunthu Banda after the May 19th Presidential and Parliamentary polls.

When the House first met for the first time in June after the elections, Henry Chimunthu Banda was unanimously elected Speaker by the 191- strong House along side Jones Chingola, Ntcheu Central parliamentarian and Juliana Mphande, Blantyre South West as his First Deputy Speaker and Second Deputy Speaker respectively.

During the six weeks that the House has been meeting, it has passed a supplementary budget, passed 16 bills that include the national budget and also made one constitutional amendment.

Unlike in the past when the opposition was in majority and got orders from former failed opposition leader John Tembo of the Malawi Congress Party and his UDF counterpart Bakili Muluzi, business in the House moved smoothly without any hindrances.

President Ngwazi Dr Bingu wa Mutharika got a landslide victory in the May polls and his ruling DPP swept almost all Parliamentary seats across the country–Malawi Digest.