Madagascar: disappointment around several senatorial reports
On the podium, the 4 chairmen of the commissions of inquiry present their report.
On January 18, 2021, this is the last intervention of a Senate composed of 63 senators.
On January 25, 18 new parliamentarians, elected under the regime's banner or appointed by the Head of State, will replace them.
© RFI-Sarah Tétaud
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
It was to be the last stand of the Senate in Madagascar, yesterday, Monday, January 18.
It has not happened.
On the eve of the end of their mandate, senators presented four parliamentary inquiry reports.
Investigations, launched at the end of November, on a wide variety of themes: the illegal import of weapons of war on the island, anomalies in the electoral lists, the great escape from Farafangana prison last August, but also the management of Covid-19 funds.
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From our correspondent in Antananarivo
,
Sarah Tétaud
If revelations were expected, the reports were content to highlight a lack of transparency of the Malagasy administration in these cases, already pointed out many times by civil society and the media without providing new elements.
►Also read: Madagascar: a report pinpoints many problems in the management of Covid-19 funds
They wanted to bring more transparency and clarification on some hot issues of these two years spent under the regime of a President of the Republic from a different political color than theirs, to show that they were fulfilling their role of controlling government action and ending, they said, "
their mandate in style
."
Limited surveys
The senators have not really succeeded.
Their investigative reports are limited to highlighting anomalies, inconsistencies, and opacities that have already been highlighted in the past by entities other than their own.
Jean-Rémy Rafidiarison, chairman of the commission of inquiry into the management of Covid funds, defends himself: “
We wanted to investigate, Madam!
But it is not our fault, since the personalities, the ministers, the directors general concerned did not respond to our summons to be heard.
(Editor's note: The Ministers of Finance, the Interior, Water, Population, Communication, as well as the Mayor and the Prefect of the capital as well as the general coordinator of the Operational Center of Command Covid-19 do not did not show up for their summons, says the Senate. Only the former Minister of Health, Ahmad Ahmad came to answer senators' questions).
The Ministry of Economy and Finance itself said "it does not concern him."
Why haven't they come?
Huh?
According to you ?
It's that there's something wrong there, something to hide.
It remains for the population to draw the conclusion: it was badly managed.
"
Before recalling that those who refuse to appear before the commission of inquiry are liable, according to law 2015-007 "
to 2 years of imprisonment
".
Lack of means
Senators also explain that they lacked resources.
Their
budget was cut
last October to gather compelling evidence of wrongdoing by members of the current government.
"
These investigations, we made them on our own funds
", thus affirms the senator Jafetra Randriamanantsoa, president of the commission of inquiry on the escape in the prison environment in Farafangana.
Why, also, to have waited until the day before the end of their mandate to make public these investigation reports, which concern facts which occurred ten months ago for the anomalies of the electoral lists.
Regarding the 23 prisoners shot dead by the
police
in Farafangana
on August 23, the first Quaestor of the Senate, Mourad Abdirassoul kicks in touch: "
The main thing is that the information is out and that everyone world knows what are the weaknesses of the executive in relation to this massacre.
"
These flaws already known, named and pointed out by civil society several months ago.
By their ultimate action, the senators have above all succeeded in proving that the last institutional bastion which called itself the opposition since the election of Andry Rajoelina, was not really one.
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