Journalists in the country have been told to use Access to Information Act (ATI) in order to hold duty bearers accountable for their actions because the politicians are in public domain as such everything they do they owe citizens of the country explanation.
The statement was made on Wednesday during a media engagement session on Access To Information (ATI) on Parliamentary support project which was conducted by Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency (CSAT) with a grant from Democracy International’s USAID in Lilongwe.
Speaking with this publication, Executive Director for CSAT Willy Kambwandira said that the country is not doing much on the issue of access to information because there are some preservations that public institutions continue to keep information on their chest due to resistance to provide information to the public.
Kambwandira added that other institutions use laws to deny citizens from getting information which means that there is a long way to go.
“We still believe that we can do more. We need to do more because we are not making a strive but again we also need to capacitate the media awareness on the Access To Information. We want every information to always be available to the public because the citizens of this country deserves to know every information,” he said.
He then asked the journalists to stop focusing on negative stories about parliament because there are a lot of positive stories that can be published.
He also asked the members of the press to keep a close eye on what Members of Parliament are doing because a lot is happening at the August house and it is only the media that can bring out such information.
