Mulanje District Council formulating new by-laws

Mulanje District Council on Tuesday begun formulating new by-laws aimed at addressing various issues hindering development in the district.

Speaking during the opening of a four-day stakeholders’ consultative meeting in the district, council vice-chairperson Samson Makwinja said the exercise was long overdue.

“For some time now, as a council, we have been contemplating to formulate new by-laws that will benefit the people of Mulanje, but we were financially handicapped,” he said.

“Realising the importance of by-laws to development, we sought financial help and capacity building expertise from USAid Local Governance Accountability Project (Lgap). We are grateful for its support. We will soon have by-laws,” he said.

Makwinja advised the task force to formulate by-laws that will benefit the people and not infringe on their rights.

Mulanje district commissioner Charles Makanga said there was a need to formulate new by-laws because the old ones are obsolete.

“As a district, we had by-laws, but with the changing times, it became difficult to enforce them. That is why we decided to formulate new ones. We will hold an awareness campaign afterwards for people to be familiar with the laws,” he said.

Among the participants were heads of government departments, political and traditional leaders, market chairpersons, civil society organisations representatives and religious leaders. n