By Chisomo Phiri
Speaker of the National Assembly Catherine Gotani Hara on Thursday afternoon temporarily suspended parliamentary proceedings due to chaos that erupted over the playing of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) footage that shows individuals who damaged vehicles belonging to two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators on Wednesday.
At the centre of the controversy was Thyolo Central Member of Parliament (MP) Ben Phiri, who government MPs accused of tampering with the CCTV footage.
They claimed that Phiri had access to the control room and allegedly manipulated the video.
To substantiate their claims, government MPs demanded that the house view footage of Phiri entering the control room.
However, the played clip contradicted the government’s allegations, showing that Phiri was not the first to enter the control room.
Instead, he followed other opposition MPs assigned to review the footage.
The government MPs, including Malawi Congress Party (MCP ) MP for Lilongwe City West,George Zulu further accused Phiri of masterminding the damage to the vehicles, alleging that he distributed MCP t-shirts to individuals who accessed the parliament premises and vandalized the cars.
Despite the opposition’s push to view the footage showing the actual vandalism, government MPs blocked the demand.
However,Gotani Hara clarified that there was no camera in the CCTV control room to show Phiri’s actions inside.
