APAM President Overstone Kondowe hits back at Mutharika: ‘Telling a commission what to do and what to look for is outrageous’

Association of Persons with Albinims in Malawi (APAM) President Overstone Kondowe has criticized President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika for dictating to a Commission of Inquiry what to do during its investigations on Attacks, Abductions and Killings of Persons with Albinism.

President Mutharika on Monday afternoon sworn-in six of eight people as commissioners of a Commission of Inquiry on Attacks, Abductions and Killings of Persons with Albinism at State house in Lilongwe.

During the sworn-in ceremony, Mutharika accused UTM leader Saulos Chilima of funding APAM with an aim of taking over the reign of power.

The President also warned the commission to watch out for people who may be paid and manipulated in order to provide misleading information.

Writing on his official facebook page, Kondowe accused Mutharika of politicizing the sworn-in ceremony of the Commission of Inquiry.

“There is no need for the HE to politicize the swearing in ceremony and spitting venom against other political party leaders. All what was needed to do was giving the commission the terms of reference and reporting procedures and deadline. Telling a commission what to do and what to look for is outrageous. Why didn’t he make himself the commission itself.

“The commission needs to be open minded to do it’s own findings and draw it’s own conclusions and submit its own independent recommendations,” he wrote.

Added Kondowe: “The membership of the commission is far from the expectations of Malawians with albinism. Where are the experts in the team… pathologist, criminal investigator, legal specialist, human rights expert, an academic, member of traditional healers? Worse more two members of the commission are from the same org (MANASO). Th avoiding of experts , independent or foreign investigation experts in the team defeats the whole purpose of the inquiry. Whom do we want to protect, I wonder?

“I wish the HE could have consulted widely in order to come up with relevant ToRs and members of the team.The time is too short, more expertise would have helped otherwise this will only be a mere duplicate of the public inquiry which was conducted by Ministry of Gender… .. and Malawi Human Rights Commission in 2016 whose reports are still not known. As this is not enough there is an inquiry underway by Parliament, how different do we need this inquiry to be is a critical question for Malawians to answer.”

Meanwhile Mutharika and Kondowe are not seeing each other eye to eye over the matter.