The Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) says it has been forced into action once again after noting some regrettable developments in the country in the past few days.
CDEDI said all well-meaning Malawians woke up to the news that the Tonse Alliance government had changed the fiscal year from the current July – June cycle to a new fiscal year which begins from April – March.
It accuses President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera for acting within his executive powers to make such a paradigm shift in policy direction.
Although it is not very strange to make such a change, CDEDI is of the view that relevant stakeholders should have been involved through a thorough consultative process.
They say It is even more mind boggling when one looks back at the history of one of the major alliance partners, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Malawians of good will should be worried with the current trend of making dictatorial policy shifts, which if left unchecked, it will set a very bad precedent, under the disguise of using the privilege of executive powers.
CDEDI says it believes that in a modern day democracy, deliberate efforts should have been made to create space for stakeholders’ consultations before government came up with such a drastic change in policy which will require amendments of some acts of parliament to accommodate the same.
Thus far, CDEDI is challenging President Chakwera to bring forward evidence that consultations were indeed made with relevant stakeholders before coming up with such a decision. Should there be no evidence of the same, CDEDI further said it will proceed to move the courts to stop government from implementing this policy shift, until such a time when thorough consultations have been done.
