Malawi’s Chief Secretary to Cabinet claims he doesn’t know why First VP was left out of Cabinet meeting

Malawi’s most senior civil servant on Monday said he has no idea why First Vice President Jane Ansah missed a Cabinet meeting, even though his own office is responsible for organising it.

“I do not know anything on that. Check with her office,” Chief Secretary to the Government Justin Adak Saidi told reporters when asked about Ansah’s absence.

The answer is raising questions. Saidi heads the Office of the President and Cabinet, the same office that prepares Cabinet agendas and notifies all ministers and both Vice Presidents to collect them. Once a meeting is scheduled, it is the OPC that handles the paperwork and the invitations.

It is not clear whether an agenda was ever prepared or delivered for the First Vice President.

President Arthur Peter Mutharika was in Blantyre and assigned Second Vice President Enoch Chihana to chair the meeting at State House in Lilongwe. Ansah was in the capital but did not attend.

Saidi insisted the President can choose either deputy.

“The law allows the President to delegate the Second Vice President. It also allows the President to delegate the First Vice President,” he said.

The Constitution is more precise. Section 92(3) states that Cabinet meetings are chaired by the President. In his temporary absence, the First Vice President takes over. Only if both are unavailable does the Second Vice President step in.

Section 79 establishes that both Vice Presidents assist the President and can be given functions by him. It does not erase the clear order set out in Section 92(3) for who chairs Cabinet.

Ansah’s absence from a meeting held in the same city, combined with the Chief Secretary’s claim that he knows nothing about it, has left basic questions unanswered.

Mutharika, 86, is a Yale-trained constitutional lawyer who spent years teaching the subject. How a law professor is applying his own Constitution is now part of the story.