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Speaker of Parliament Henry Chimunthu-Banda, who was addressing a press conference on his attendance to the third Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in Geneva, Switzerland and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association African region meeting in Mpumalanga, South Africa, said the bills were sent to the President’s Office on Tuesday.

“Parliament sent the bills on Tuesday and it means His Excellency the President has had the bills for two days which follows well with Section 73(1) of the Constitution. He has assented to all the bills that were sent to him,” the Speaker said.

Chimunthu-Banda clarified that Section 73 (1) of the Constitution states that the President should assent or reject a bill within 21 days after it is presented to him and not from the day the National Assembly passed the bill.

“I note that there was confusion over this. Let me say that after a bill is passed, we liaise with the office of the Solicitor General to make any corrections or amendments effected during the committee of supply meeting. It is only after that [process] that we send them to the President,” Chimunthu-Banda said.

The President on Wednesday publicly backed the modification, challenging anybody with an objection to come forward and justify it. He said the new-look flag depicts developments Malawi has gone through.

Mutharika said from the consultations done by the Ministry of Information and Civic Education, it was clear that very few people had objections to the modification and branded those that are resisting as “just being difficult.”

He said the old flag era had gone and that Malawi should embrace new developments that have taken place in the country as it could not remain where it was at the dawn of independence.

The Association of Catholic Priests, various churches and civic groups protested the flag modification mainly citing costs of changing the flag, but Mutharika said every year, flags are replaced and the cost for the new design will be the same as replacement of the old flags.

With the assenting, the next stage is to have the modified flag gazetted which could be done next week, meaning Malawians could start using the new flag by first or second week of August.