Consumers Association of Malawi (CAMA) says the government has failed to protect and promote the rights of consumers in the country as Malawians continue witnessing rising food prices which have a trigger effect on high inflation thereby exacerbating the high cost of living.
In a statement that has been made available to this publication, Executive Director for CAMA, John Kapito said that the major staple food is scarce but sold at prices that are unaffordable to the majority of consumers which has negatively undermined the right to food.
Kapito added that consumers are concerned with such a level of negligence by the Government which has a huge cost on their livelihoods and negatively affects their right to food.
“We are therefore appealing to the Government to ensure that the right to food is protected at all times. Apart from that, consumers continue to experience serious challenges to access health care services due to shortages of drugs/medicines in almost all health facilities coupled with poor infrastructure and this negatively affects the realization of the right to health care,” he explained.
Kapito went on to say that the government should be accountable for its failure to respect the right to health care and ensure that hospitals adequately provide better healthcare.
He however pointed out that the right to education is one of the rights that has been abused for a long time to the extent that children continue to learn under trees and in dilapidated and unsafe buildings with inadequate teaching staff and learning materials compromising the quality and access to education.
He then asked the government to seriously improve the quality of education as well as clean and portable water because the majority of consumers continue to have no access to piped water thereby relying on unsafe sources of water from rivers and swamps and those few that can get piped water can’t afford to pay the high water tariffs.
Kapito then asked the government to come up with a cushioning policy to alleviate the challenges that the poor Malawians continue to face.
