Parliament approves revised 2020/2021 national budget

Parliament has approved the 2020 to 2021 revised budget of 2.3 trillion kwacha which has been increased from 2.1 trillion kwacha

Members of parliament passed the budget through a voting stage after a tie in the yes and no votes

Before the approval first Deputy Speaker of parliament chased out a Member of Parliament for not wearing a mask

Madalitso Kazombo threatened to chase out any MP making noise when they were debating budgets for various government departments, agencies and Ministries.

“Honourable members if anyone makes noise I will not hesitate to chase him from the chamber,” warned Kazombo

In the afternoon Public accounts committee presented the 2016 to 2018 audit report which revealed mismanagement of Constituency development fund

Among the anomalies are 167 million kwacha not accounted for, 205 projects not monitored, project materials not recorded in stores ledger and procurement mistakes

 In the morning the Parliament suspended the debate on the abortion bill which was scheduled to be tabled in the national assembly today

Leader of the house in Parliament Richard Chimwendo Banda announced that the parliamentarians will instead discuss the budget

Last year the legislators also deliberately ignored debating the bill though it appeared in the order paper

This happened after various groups of people in the country spoke against passing the bill saying abortion is evil