MALAWI: CCJP in Access to Information Act Commencement Advocacy for Quality Healthcare in The Country
Group photo of the participants of Access to Information Act Advocacy and Engagement meeting
The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) has attributed the challenges people are facing in the health institutions and services concerning health rights in the country to the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology’s delay to operationalize the Access to Information (ATI) law, which will ensure transparency and accountability in the health sector.
This came to light during a two days Access to Information Act advocacy and engagement meeting on health rights issues in Salima, under the “Promotion of High Quality, Accountable and Responsive Public Health Service” project being implemented in Chitipa and Karonga districts.
During the meeting, participating national actors with similar interest with CCJP namely the Human Rights Commission, Media Institute for Southern Africa, and the office of the Ombudsman shared a common understanding that access to information is one of the measures to ensure health needs of Malawians are met. The delay by the Minister of Information and Communication Technology to gazette the commencement date is therefore infringing upon the health rights of Malawians.
Speaking for the Human Right Commission, Mr. Peter Chisi, the Director of Civil and Political Rights said it is unfortunate that some concerned parties in the implementation of the law are not willing to honor the responsibility the Law allocated to them.
“The Law assigns to the Minister of Information and Communication Technology the mandate to set and publish in the gazette the commencement date for the Law. As we are talking, the ministry has not done so despite the Parliament passing the bill into law on 14th December 2016 and the Presidential assent’s done on 10th February 2017. The minister is holding this Law from being operational and people continue to face challenges in health service delivery,” said Mr. Chisi.
He continued that people see problems in the health system like shortage of drugs in hospitals and health centers, Indiscipline and misbehavior by health workers, but they don’t know how to participate in addressing such problems. As an oversight institution in implementation of the Law, the Commission is convinced that all preparatory work in readiness for the operation of the Law has been adequately done.
The Access to information Law empowers the people to participate in management of their health service institutions.
In his remarks, CCJP desk officer for Karonga Diocese Mr. Louis Nkhata said the delay by the Minister is a political and deliberate decision by Government.
“A common man is losing a lot with this delay; we expect Government to be exemplary in being transparent and accountable is this democratic country. With the Law in place, a number of problems being experienced now will be addressed. This project has established that there is a lot of abuse and robbery of drugs, for example, because people cannot participate in the management of the health budgetary and policy information process and expenditure of their health institutions,” said Nkhata.
The project is being implemented by CCJP Karonga Diocese in partnership with the CCJP National office of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) and the Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN), with funding from Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA). These advocacy institutions envision improved access to high quality health services by people through transparency, accountable and responsive health sector that allows citizen participation in the country.
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BY: Stella Zulu Kaferapanjira
