Bracing for ATI’s next hurdle

Hon Folks, hats off to Parliament for being on the side of the short-changed Malawians on Access to Information (ATI) Bill.

Now we can only wait with bated breath to see if APM will assent to it. Should that happen, then we can celebrate and declare that the people have won, democracy has won.

Right now, it’s too early for the party.  Earlier in the year APM vowed not to assent to the Bill should government’s adulterated ATI version be modified by the august House.

This happened when Media Council of Malawi and Misa Malawi led a delegation of media owners and managers who called on the President at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe to plead with him to see merit in the original draft Bill, an outcome of wide consultations with various stakeholders, including government.

Instead, APM, a lecturer in constitutional law in the US before becaming a politician, argued there were many flows in the original ATI draft. As such, it’s either government’s version or no ATI Act during his tenure.

Key among the disputed issues was that government wanted a Cabinet minister to oversee the operations of the ATI Act, not an independent body as proposed in the original draft.

Government also wanted whistle-blowing to be an offence when best practices in open societies require that whistle-blowers be protected.  In addition, it used the right to privacy as an excuse for not releasing public information unless with the consent of persons having such right in the information.

I am informed that the ATI version passed by Parliament Wednesday evening has the Malawi Human Right Commission as the overseer. Although MHRC is a government body, its record as a watchdog for human rights isn’t tainted by divisive partisan interests and therefore a better alternative to a minister.

Unfortunately, government does not appear interested in a better custodian for ATI. It wants a system that guarantees it 100 percent control of what information to release or hold. The only remedy it suggested is for the aggrieved party to seek recourse in the courts but only after exhausting the cumbersome internal processes in government

My take is that on ATI government behaves like a person with many skeletons to hide. Indeed transparency and accountability has been the strength of any government in the multi-party era, except perhaps Bakili Muluzi’s first term.

A chill runs down the spine  when I recall how a  minister, responding to a reporter’s question on the size of APM’s  entourage to the UN General Assembly in New York a couple of months ago,  said he could release such information to the media, which he described as a “parallel structure”  to Parliament to which government reports.

Until now, nobody knows who APM took along on that month-long journey and how much of tax-payer’s money was spent on the trip in a year when half the population is starving and government has drastically cut on public service delivery.

Malawians are suffering deprivation—ditched by donors of direct budget support, shunned by foreign investors and losing 30 per cent of public revenue—because of rampant fraud and corruption.

Yet, instead of opening up, especially in light of the decentralisation programme which allows for more public funds to be allocated and expended at the district, town or city council level, government behaves indifferently, increasing the probability of Cashgate spreading to the grassroots.

Which is why, there is need to consolidate the gains made by having MPs pass ATI Bill. In case, APM decides to live up to his threats not to assent to the bill, we can only implore the MPs to put their foot down and pass without adulterating it next time.

But should government decide to shelve it, it will be in the best interest of all Malawians, regardless of party affiliations, to join hands and send a message a clear that Malawi is a home to the 17 million of us, not the President’s backyard garden.  Demonstrations are justified. n