ATI gets no funding for two financial years
The goodwill the Tonse Alliance administration demonstrated initially to operationalise the Access to Information (ATI) Act appears to have dissipated as Treasury has for two consecutive financial years not allocated resources for its implementation.
The development has worried key industry players such as Media Institute for Southern Africa (Misa) Malawi chapter and Parliament who are questioning government’s commitment on seeing the Act being utilised by citizens.
Government delegated the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) to assume responsibility of the Act in terms of oversight and operationalisation.
During the fiscal year 2022/23, government did not allocate any money for ATI while this year, despite increasing allocation to MHRC by 65 percent, the Act has also been overlooked.
“Even with this commendable increase, the commission still hasn’t been allocated an adequate budget for the operationalization of the Access to Information Act and the Gender Equality Act,” reads a report of Parliamentary Cluster 9 that comprises legislators from the Public Appointments Committee (PAC) and Committee on Commissions, Statutory Corporations and State Enterprises.
Misa Malawi chairperson Teresa Ndanga, in an interview yesterday, bemoaned the development saying it was expected that in the formation years MHRC will go full-throttle raising awareness and ensuring full implementation of the Act.
This essentially means that since the Tonse Alliance administration came to power, the only time it allocated resources for operationalisation of ATI was in its first year.
Said Ndanga: “This raises the question of whether they are truly and honestly committed to see ATI being utilised by citizens and public offices being fully transparent and accountable to the citizenry.”
Youth and Society executive director Charles Kajoloweka encouraged Treasury to ensure it commits, in terms of resources, to MHRC to effectively discharge its statutory obligations.
“This being a new law, one would expect government to put enough resources for implementation. Unfortunately we continue seeing lack of commitment,” he said.
MHRC executive secretary Habiba Osman said in an interview that her office was waiting for Treasury to share the budget to each controlling officer and in it they will guide them to provide budget breakdown.
She said: “Approved budget estimates will be different from the final ones. It’s at this stage when I can advise.”
In November last year, Kajoloweka wrote the Ministry of Information expressing concern over the status quo of the Act, describing it as a grave threat to the full realisation of the right to access information by citizens.
