The Malawi Law Society (MLS) has urged authorities to consider instituting fresh investigation into reports that deputy speakers Clement Chiwaya and Esther Mcheka Chilenje defrauded government through rental allowances.
The call comes at a time when the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has advised the Parliamentary Service Commission to treat the matter as an administrative issue after being given a task to investigate on the allegations.
Chilenje and Chiwaya were reported to have been accumulating house allowances amounting to K550,000 per month which is K300,000 more than the required K250,000 per month.
But MLS through its President John Suzi Banda has argued that the matter should not only be treated as an administrative issue citing possibilities that the two might have pocketed the allowances.
“Our position as Malawi Law Society is to urge authorities to consider whether the facts as they are do show that the deputy speakers were involved on the matter, perhaps give them an opportunity to answer on the facts, that’s what we are looking for, and the possible action to be engaged,” said Banda.
He added that MLS is now to engage the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on the matter as the first new step on the probe.
The deputy speakers were supposed to be getting K250,000 since they were living in their own houses but they claimed to be living in rented houses hence Parliament gave them K550,000 as house allowance.
The reports pushed the Malawi graft busting body ACB to launch investigations.
ACB yanena ndiye titaninso abale? Koma ziliko kumMalawi. Malamulo akuyenda ngati mkaka kwa anthu amaudindo KKKKKKKKK