Back Bencher

More fire on right to information, please

Honourable Folks, my colleagues in media tell me the APM administration has shown unprecedented interest in enacting an enabling law for Section 37 of the Constitution.

The section states: “Subject to any Act of Parliament, every person shall have the right of access to all information held by the State or any of its organs at any level of government in so far as such information is required for the exercise of his rights.”

If indeed what I hear is true, that the Access to Information Bill will be tabled in the next sitting of Parliament, then APM will score a first on an issue so central to transparency and accountability—the tenets of good democratic governance.

The Constitution was adopted at the beginning of the multi-party dispensation in 1994. That was 20 years ago! The pressure on government to enact the enabling law started gaining currency in the second term of Bakili Muluzi’s tenure (1999-2004).

Yet for the past 15 years, the Muluzi, Bingu wa Mutharika and Joyce Banda administrations have all simply paid lip-service to the call for access to public information. All there’s to show for it are such excuses as “we’re consulting stakeholders” or “there’s need to first come up with policy framework.”

Which brings up the question: How long is the shelf-life for APM’s goodwill?

The trend, consistently shown by the past president since 1994, has always been to promise paradise upon or prior to assuming office then start the political shenanigans of creating hell for the electorate when the addictive sweetness of bad governance begins to take its toll.

Prudence should, therefore, make us realise that even APM can make a U-turn on this issue any time. All the more reason we must make hay while the sun is still shining by pushing hard to have the law enacted while the presidential goodwill is still there.

Remember, for the past 15 years we have waited patiently for consultations and other excuses to culminate in the enactment of Access to Information law while those entrusted with powers to govern were busy looting the public kitty, taking advantage of the knowledge gap created by the absence of the law.

We’ve watched in disbelief as presidents who were on the verge of bankruptcy at the time of assuming power, went on to spend as if money trees grew in the backyard of the State House. Those that have had a stinker of financial impropriety, it’s been in billions of kwacha, not millions.

On their part, civil servants who net less than K500 000 have looted millions of kwacha from government coffers with impunity while seeking refuge in the lack of balance in our statutes between those that protect the right to privacy and those that require public officers to account to the citizenry.

APM might be an angel now but, as a human being, can change colours. All the more reason why the civil society should exert much more pressure on government to do the needful and enact the law.

There’s also the need to ensure this powerful tool is taken to its rightful owners—the public. Unless the people themselves can own and effectively use public information to interrogate how funds sourced in their name are  used and hold those entrusted with power to account, much of the potential the anticipated law has to become a game-changer will be lost.

So far, our democracy has had the lucky few people in government (elected and appointed representatives) at its centre while the majority of the people are passively watching on the terraces as greed and partisan interests have again and again led to the incineration of our cherished hope to eradicate poverty and be counted among the growing economies.

Without access to public information, decentralisation may just help spread the Cashgate scandal from the Capital Hill in Lilongwe to the district, town, municipality and city councils.

Civil society should, therefore, help government, already ditched by donors, see the trouble it may court for itself should it choose to procrastinate further on the Bill. At the same time, civil society should also show the people how they can effectively use access to public information to make informed choices and reclaim their hard won multi-party democracy.  n

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