People want ‘us to do more, better, faster’-Malawian Speaker urges colleagues

By Saidi Yakubu

African leaders should work to create conditions for development, Malawi’s Speaker of Parliament and outgoing Chairperson of the Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Africa, Henry Chimunthu Banda  (pictured) said during the opening of the 13^th Speakers Conference in Lilongwe.

“Our constituents all over the continent are expecting us to do more, better and faster all the time,” said adding that the conference will help us to come up with mechanisms on how best African Parliaments can serve their electorates as democratic and accountable institutions.” Patrick Herminie, who is speaker of Parliament in Seychelles, stressed the importance of political tolerance for Africa to develop.

The Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers in the Commonwealth Africa is a biannual gathering of the Parliamentary heads and this year discussed three crucial themes pertinent to the growth of democracy namely the Case for Complementing Roles of government and the Opposition in African Parliaments as a sustainable way of fostering National Unity and development which was led by presentations from Namibia and Seychelles. It was noted that

there is no model of Parliamentary system that will be fit for all countries but there was a general consensus that the Speaker's chair should always be insulated from government interference.

Testimonies were received as to how 'subtle persuasion' is always used to enable the Executive to have its way. The Speaker of Zambia shared his experience of 13 years in the chair and how he has always been on the border of falling out of favour with a faction within the ruling party for not giving in to their demand.

The Parliamentary heads agreed in principle that public interests should always be above party interests and the Speaker should strive to ensure although the majority will always have their way, the minority should have their say. 

On another theme, the Dilemma of a Speaker retaining a constituency seat after being elected which was led by presentations from Zambia and Uganda, it was presented that the role of the Speaker is fundamental to the success of democratic governance in any country that uses the principle of separation of powers as well as checks and balances.

 Zambian Speaker, Hon. Amusaa Mwanamwambwa, the second most veteran speaker in African Commonwealth after Cameroon, shared the potential challenges that a Speaker will face if he was also a constituent MP, ''The Speaker is the head of the house and also perform other administrative and procedural functions and to add this to time consuming constituency responsibilities would mean that he will be the representative of the constituency in the house, the  chief mourner at funerals, the dispenser of goods and others benefits, to do these functions in the constituency will mean the Speaker will have to solicit funds from the government or other donors including private companies and therefore by and large compromise the fairness and impartiality to the role as Chair of debates'' said Hon. Mwanamwambwa.

Hon. Rebecca Kadaga, Speaker of Uganda Parliament and a constituency MP shared the dilemma faced by holding both positions at once, ''the exercise of impartiality is the main dilemma because you have to ensure principles of democracy prevail as well as advocating the interest of your constituency'' she said adding that the other challenge is party loyalty as all MPs are supposed to toe the party line because whereas it would appear normal for an ordinary constituency member to attend party caucuses, the Speaker cannot because in the eyes of opposition members such a move would biase the Speaker in favour of his/her party’’. Several countries including Tanzania, Kenya and Malawi expressed the same hurdle as the Speaker in the said country must first be a Member of Parliament.

However, Hon. Kadaga argued that it was not a guarantee that having a Speaker elected from outside Parliament would be an assurance of fairness, because such a person could also have inclination to a particular party which might affect his/her conduct in the house. Speakers had a general agreement that impartiality depends more on the persons’ integrity than the system that has put him in place.

The Challenge of Meeting information needs of the Members of Parliament in Africa with lead presentations from Kenya and The Gambia was another theme discussed during the Conference. Speakers agreed that more needs to be done in meeting information needs of both Members of Parliaments and the general public at large.

The exciting testimony from Rwanda - a paperless Parliament was hailed as the ideal direction which all African Parliament should head. Rwanda, a country with two chambers no longer hands out order papers, speeches or hansard in hard copies rather each Member of Parliament is given a laptop during induction period and all parliamentary materials are posted on the website where members can access or are sent in their emails. The Chamber has internet access and MPs are allowed in the house with their laptops. Furthermore each Member is given a modem for use outside parliament.

Despite the age of most Speakers, they expressed the enthusiasm and fascination with social media with Speaker of Uganda highlighting her experience with Face book and how she interacts with the public.

The conference has also elected Hon. Dr. Patrick Herminie, Speaker of Seychelles and host for the 14th Conference in 2013 as Chairperson of the Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers for the next two years with Cameroon (host of the said conference for 2015) as Vice Chairperson.