Potential new Members of Parliament are busy dusting their suits and Imishanana as they move to the next chapter of their lives. The newcomers arrive when the path has been well beaten; they will not have to re-invent the wheel. They should instead be part of a process that will chart new courses that will continue to propel this country forward.

But most importantly, they should strive to listen to the population. During the just ended campaigns, many candidates made promises, some realistic others pipedreams, a simple ploy to draw in gullible voters.

Well, some may ignore the pledges they made thinking they are home free, so they should be mechanisms for MPs and political parties to account for their promises; how far they have implemented what the promised on the campaign trail.

So, those who will manage to go through will have the moral obligation of trying to honour their pledges. They should not wrongly think that simply because their name tags are on their benches the journey has ended. No, it has just begun.

They will have to improve on the last parliament’s achievements; one of them has been taking the issue of fighting malnutrition and stunting right to rural families’ doorsteps, not drafting good sounding policies and locking them in the bottom drawer.

Today, rural primary schools are supplied with free milk and fortified blended foods are distributed among needy families to fight malnutrition. Those measures are being done in the quest of kicking malnutrition out of the country, a fight that is slowly being won.

The gauntlet is now being thrown at the new parliament; we want to see some uniqueness (Ubudasa).