Government last year(2010) announced that the Access To Information Bill would not be tabled in Parliament unless accompanied by a Policy on Access To Information.
 
This prompted MISA-Malawi to push for the policy, which led the Ministry of Information to set up a Task Force comprising various stakeholders including MISA-Malawi to plan and spearhead development of the policy, hence the draft.
 
The draft policy has been developed by a team of experts led by renowned Law Professor Edge Kanyongolo. The draft policy was officially tabled for scrutiny at a meeting convened by the Ministry on Tuesday 11 January 2011, in the capital Lilongwe. Among other stakeholders at the meeting were representatives from MISA-Malawi, Media Council of Malawi, Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Media and Communications and Minister of Information and Civic Education, Symon Vuwa Kaunda.
 
Representatives of MISA-Malawi have been drumming up support to have the ATI Bill passed. They have so far met the Media and Communications Committee of parliament to update the committee on the campaign on the enactment of the Bill, among other strategic partners. The campaign, however, met a snag when government announced that every Bill ought to be accompanied by a policy before debate in parliament.
 
Policy formulation falls within the mandate of the State and the Ministry of Information and Civic Education is directly responsible for the process.
 
The ATI Bill was drafted in 2003 and a campaign to have the Bill enacted was launched in 2004 by MISA-Malawi.
 
The ATI legislation aims at creating conducive environment for access to public information.
 
Section 37 of the country’s Constitution provides that: “Subject to an 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.” This provision, however, is subject to an Act of Parliament that is currently not there. //End//  
 
 
Reagan Malumo
Programme Specialist: Media Freedom Monitoring and Research
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Regional Secretariat
21 Johann Albrecht St
Private Bag 13386
Windhoek
Namibia
Phone: +264 61 232 975
Fax: +264 61 248 016
Mobile: +264 81 311 2626
Official Email: reagan(@)misa.org
Private Email: reagan32002(@)yahoo.com

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