Ombudsman Grace Malera has commended the Ministry of Agriculture for complying with rulings.

According to Ombudsman Malera, the Ministry had a total of 13 determinations that her office issued and most of the determinations have been compiled with.

In an interview after having roundtable discussion with the Ministry and Parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee in Lilongwe, Malera said the Ministry has made tremendous progress.

“The Ministry has made quite some tremendous progress, almost half of those determinations have now been fully complied with and the other half there is quite some good progress in the Ministry meeting with the pronouncements in those determinations,” Malera said.

Principal Secretary in the Ministry Sandram Maweru said the Ministry will work in the remaining two cases by tracing the missing documents.

He said: “We are undergoing decentralization and the transfer of files from Ministry headquarters to district council was hurriedly done and some of the documents in the process were lost.

“But we have managed to trace most of the documents and a team in human resources is going out in the district councils to ensure that they look at the documentation that is missing in some of the cases and then proper handovers will be done.”

Whilst acknowledging the progress the Ministry has made, the committee has bemoaned the absence of Auditor General (AG) as the major contributing factor in derailing the execution of the determinations.

“Members lamented that as a country we have had no substantive AG for four years also now, Members would really want this office to be filled as soon as possible because it’s a very important office, there is no one taking responsibility for the delays that are actually happening,” said Peter Dimba, the Committee’s Chairperson.

The Parliamentary interface was aimed at the ministry reporting to the committee on whether the cases on non-compliance have been concluded.