UNESCO helps Malawi media on Access to Information Bill

A senior official at the Commission, Emmanuel Kondowe, said UNESCO has provided funds to Lilongwe Press Club and the Mzuzu-based Nyika Media Club, aimed at organising panel discussions on the Bill.

Kondowe said the discussions would in the end, be aired on some local radios and Malawi Television.

Last Thursday the Malawi National Commission for UNESCO engaged Lilongwe Press Club, which conducted a panel discussion in Lilongwe and next Wednesday the Nyika Media Club will be holding a similar event in Mzuzu.

The Constitution provides that every person shall have access to public information. However, although section 37 of the Constitution guarantees access to government-held information, there are 40 other laws that work against this piece of legislation.

Amongst them are the Censorship and Control of Entertainments Act, The Official Secrets Act, The Police Act, The Preservation of Public Security Act, as well as the Protected Names flags and Emblems Act.

Since Malawi does not have an Access to Information Act to oblige public servants provide information to the media or any interested Malawian, public officers may deny the media critical information it requires and this may curtail public right to be informed.

Since 2006, parliament undertook to push the enactment of the Bill with the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament taking the leading role. Its chairman, Atupele Muluzi, even suggested that it be tabled as private members' Bill since government was showing unwillingness to do so.

Although the Ministry of Information pledged to table the Bill during the June 2007 sitting, nothing has come to fruition to date, and during the Lilongwe Panel discussions, Acting Director of Information and Civic Education, Bob Chilemba, said the access to information legislation would not give complete freedom to public information

“The Bill is still at the consultation stage and would still undergo changes as input from various stakeholders comes in,” he insisted.

Kelvin Sentala, Chairperson of Media Legal Fund for the National Media Institute of Southern Africa, said within the Act, there is a provision of the Independent Public Information Commission where aggrieved persons would go to complain to if they feel that the media practitioners have put to bad use the information they obtained.

“There are exceptions to what kind of information can be accessed by the media and public. Information that is detrimental to national security or information that concerns a third party or infringes on lawyer/client or doctor patient confidentiality will not be public information,” he said.

UNESCO hopes that the panel discussions would look at the significance of the contents of the draft legislation on access to information to the public, members of parliament, civil servants, the media, democracy and the private sector.