Ministry plans to drill chiefs on their roles
Ministry of Local Government, Unity, and Culture says plans are at an advanced stage to introduce an orientation programme for chiefs to drill them on their roles in the society.
The move comes at a time the conduct of some traditional leaders has come under spotlight for making partisan or tribalistic statements, especially at political rallies.
In a rewritten response on Thursday, the ministry’s spokesperson Anjoya Mwanza said her ministry is working with the Malawi School of Government to re- introduce the programme to orient chiefs on their role.
She said: “Traditional leaders are supposed to be neutral. However, we haven’t trained our chiefs for some time due to resource constraints.”
During a Malawi Congress Party rally in Ntchisi last week, Traditional Authority (T/A) Nthondo was heard in a video clip urging his subjects to support fellow Chewas to continue being in charge.
The remarks attracted cr iticism from some quarters of the society, with governance analysts saying the statement can be divisive.
But in an earlier interview on Thursday, Nthondo justified his statement, saying he was just encouraging the Chewas to love and support one another.
“Chiefs always make statements that have several meanings. But as traditional leaders, we don’t work or campaign for any political party. We just work with the government of the day,” he said.
Commenting on the matter, Catholic University of Malawi governance scholar Justin Mangulama and his Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences counterpart Andrew Kaponya observed that Nthondo’s statement can cause division in the country.
Mangulama said while every Malawian has the right to freedom of expression, politicians, chiefs and other leaders must tread careful ly when uttering tribal utterances.
On his part, Kaponya said traditional leaders are expected to represent all people regardless of their political, cultural and religious affiliation.
Section 7 of the Chiefs Act of Malawi states that chiefs’ functions include to preserve public peace.
