By Josephine Chipofya 

Lilongwe, 14 November, Mana: Parliamentary Committee on Media, Information and Communication has said their need for immediate amendment of Access to Information Act (ATI) in order to hold accountable non compliant institutions.

This was said on Thursday at the parliament building, where the committee met officials from Ministry of information and Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC), to give update on compliance on ATI.

Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Media, Information and Communication Susan Dosi said the Act needs to be amended to give powers to Ministry of information and MHRC to issue punishments to non compliant institutions.

"There are a lot of gaps in the Act one of them is what happens if an institution is not complying with the law, Malawi Human Rights Commission and the Ministry should be given powers to hold to account no compliant institutions," she said 

She added that the committee we will continue to press institutions to comply with the ATI Act, saying the laws are made so that everyone should abide to them.

Meanwhile Director of Information in the Ministry of information, Arthur Chipenda said all Ministries, Departments and parastatals have at least designated information officers, he also said they need to update the list to check if the information officers appointed are still the same.

"We will publish the names of the information officers by December, we have a total of 150 information officers appointed from public institutions and we are yet to receive from the private sector," he said.

He added that there is need for capacity building for information officers and information holders to submit names of the information officers and reports without being reminded.

In his presentation Malawi Human Rights Commission Head of Access to Information Unit Chancy Kalolokesha said some provisions in the ATI Act conflict with other laws like official secrecy Act.

Access to Information Act was enacted in 2016 and became effect in 2020 to regulate the provision of access to public information.