A month after Parliament  adjourned, it is yet to clear the much-awaited Corrupt Practices Act (Amendment) Bill for signing into law by President Lazarus Chakwera.

Parliament spokesperson Ian Mwenye said in an interview yesterday the secretariat was still cleaning up the Bill alongside others before forwarding them to the President.

He said: “As a matter of procedure, after the Bill has been passed in the House, we have to clean it up before it goes for assent. So, the [Corrupt Practices Act Amendment] Bill is among those we are working on.”

If assented to, the Bill will allow the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to prosecute offences under the Corrupt Practices Act (CPA) without seeking consent from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

The Bill comes amid some bad blood between the DPP and the ACB over granting of consent.

ACB has openly accused the office of the DPP of lack of interest to grant them consent to prosecute cases, especially those related to United Kingdom-based businessperson Zuneth Sattar currently under investigation.

During the recent meeting of Parliament, Likoma Island legislator Ashems Songwe (Malawi Congress Party) moved a Private Member’s Bill to amend the Act and remove a provision under Section 42 which requires ACB to seek consent from the DPP.

He argued that the move would grant the ACB autonomy in its operations.

Given the overwhelming support the Bill received in the House, there has been huge interest to know whether the President will support the Bill or not once it is submitted to him for assent.

Standing Order 134 (3) requires that where a Bill has been presented to the President, he shall either assent or withhold assent within 21 days.

In a separate interview yesterday, Attorney General (AG) Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda said the counting of the 21 days starts from the day the Bill is presented to the President.

He said while he is not sure why the other Bills are yet to be submitted for assent, there are usually processes in between the passing of the Bill in Parliament and the presidential assent, which include cleaning up of the Bill.

Former Speaker of the National Assembly Henry Chimunthu Banda also agreed with the AG, adding that Parliament, as a secretariat, usually ensures that all is in order before presenting Bills to the President.

The former Speaker said after the Power Interconnection Bill incident in 2008 where was presented for assent when it was never discussed in the House, Parliament has to thoroughly check Bills before sending them to the President.

He said: “That was a learning point so apart from cleaning the Bill, the secretariat attaches the so that the President is well informed of what he is assenting to or where he withholds assent he must do so with sufficient information.”

Other bills approved in the National Assembly in the last meeting include the One Stop Border Control, Criminal Procedure and Evidence Code (Amendment) and Courts (Amendment) Bill.

Meanwhile, the President has assented to six loan authorisation Bills approved during the same meeting of Parliament which ran for four weeks from July to August 12 2022.

The post Parliament yet to clear corruption law amendment appeared first on The Nation Online.