‘Malawi government is irresponsible’

One of the country’s activists, Benedicto Kondowe, has added his voice to the growing opposition against government’s failure to table the Access to Information (ATI) bill in the current sitting of Parliament.

At the opening of the 46th sitting of Parliament, President Peter Mutharika promised Malawians that government will table the ATI before his administration decided against tabling it.

Kondowe, who is an education and human rights activist, said government must realise that it serves the general public.  

“Government must realize that it serve the public and it has to respect the needs of its people and what it is doing now is showing that it is irresponsible,” said Kondowe.

However, a group of civil society organisations petitioned government and gave it a seven day ultimatum to discuss the ATI bill in the current sitting of Parliament.

One of the CSO’s in the country, Citizen Alliance, also asked government to engage with other stakeholders when correcting errors in the ATI bill.

Executive secretary of Citizen Alliance Wilson Asibu said that they know that the bill might not be tabled in the current session of Parliament but all they are asking is that government should come in the open and give them assurances as to when the bill will be tabled.

He said: “Currently government is silent on the matter in response to our petition, we want it to provide consistence in ATI bill and it has to propose the changes they want to see in the bill.”