CSOs date Chakwera on petition

Six Human Rights Defenders (HRD) officials yesterday met Leader of Opposition in Parliament Lazarus Chakwera at Parliament Building and engaged him on issues raised in their April 27 petition.

In an interview after the meeting, Centre for the Development of People (Cedep) executive director Gift Trapence, who spoke on behalf of the HRD, said they discussed appointment of the police Inspector General (IG) and the distribution of the  controversial K4 billion funding for local development , among others.

He said the discussion on the appointment of the police IG came ahead of the government’s need to make the appointment soon for Parliament to confirm.

The Malawi Police Service (MPS) is currently headed by acting IG Rodney Jose.

Trapence said: “We met the opposition leader in Parliament to share our concerns and understand the role the opposition will play in Parliament regarding the appointment of the new police IG.

“It is important to note that we have written all opposition political parties and this is the first meeting we are having with the leader of opposition. We shall also have meetings with People’s Party and Aford.”

In an interview, Eisenhower Mkaka, secretary general of Malawi Congress Party (MCP), confirmed that the meeting discussed a number of issues.

He said: “To talk about our feedback, we say that our position on the K4 billion has not changed. People need to understand that what government does is independent of MCP. We feel that the best way forward on the issue is that government should suspend it.”

On the issue of the appointment of the police IG, Mkaka said there has been a technicality where there was no vacancy in the IG office until after May 30 this year, when the former police chief officially retired.

He said the party now expects government to appoint a new IG and bring him or her to Parliament for confirmation.

The April 27 demonstrations were triggered by the civil society organisations (CSOs) demand for the dismissal of ministers Goodall Gondwe (Finance, Economic Planning and Development) and Kondwani Nankhumwa (Local Government and Rural Development) over the K4 billion which Treasury has since released to the Local Government Ministry for development projects in local councils.

Chakwera participated in the peaceful demonstration and said MCP would reject the funding for fear of it being abused, as there were no accountability procedures set by government.

Government has not formally responded to the CSOs’ petition.

HRD is a grouping of civil society organisations (CSOs) who led the April 27 nationwide demonstrations.