Speaker of Parliament Gotani Hara has asked government and development partners to support parliamentary committees in carrying out their oversight role.
Hara made the appeal when opening five Day orientation workshop Parliamentary Committees on Monday at Bingu International Conference Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe.
The aim of the workshop is to provide an opportunity to Members of Parliament to appreciate the oversight role of parliamentary committees.
In her speech, Hara asked government and development partners to provide resources for the committees to be meeting more than four weeks a year to do their oversight role saying they have a lot of issues to tackle.
She said the orientation is important because it will help the parliamentarians to know how to do their duties right.
Hara then asked the Members of Parliament to take the workshop seriously and learn from it so that they can deliver positively to the country. She also asked them to work together positively despite belonging to different parties.
In her remarks, United Nations Representative, Maria Jose Torres, called upon members of Parliament to consider upholding the rights of minorities.
She also said the UN will look into the matter to provide resources to the Parliament so that Members of Parliament can hold more meetings and fulfill their duties.
On his part, chairperson of the Parliamentary committee on agriculture, Sameer Suleman said he expects to effectively perform his duties with passion to help Malawians after the workshop by working with everyone in the committees despite their political differences.
Malawi has a total of 19 parliamentary committees through which the MPs elected in the May 21 elections will perform oversight, representative and legislative functions.
