Parliament passes Access to Information Bill amid strong opposition from govt

Opposition members of Parliament (MPs) on Wednesday braved the strong opposition from government MPs in the National Assembly to pass the much awaited Access to Information (ATI) Bill, attracting applause from Media Council of Malawi.

The whole saga started with Leader of Government in the National Assembly Dr. George Chaponda who is also Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development at around 2pm when he asked the house to start debating on other bills and not the ATI bill.

The statement caused chaos in the National Assembly forcing the Second Deputy Speaker Clement Chiwaya to suspend the house for the 30 minutes to allow leaders of both side to discuss on the way forward of the matter.

The house resumed at around 4pm with an announcement from the Speaker Richard Msowoya informing the house that leaders of the two block of agreed to go on with debate on the Access to Information Bill.

The announcement attracted ululations from opposition MPs led by Malawi Congress Party (MCP) President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera.

As everyone was thinking that debate in the committee stage will progress smoothly, government MPs through Minister of Information and Communications Technology Malison Ndau stood up and proposed for the suspension of debate on the bill to Friday morning.

Ndau observed that there were some areas that needed to be looked into before the bill was passed.

But opposition pressed hard to have the piece of legislation enacted and they sailed through.

At exactly 20:15 pm the bill was passed attracting ululations from opposition MPs with some chanting ayilira! Ayilira!.

Meanwhile it is not known as to wherever President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika will ascent the bill into law.