By Clara Wadi
The Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency (CSAT)
empowered community journalists to understand and add value to the
Parliamentary Support Program project.
During the media engagement session held at Chatonda Lodge,
Moffat Phiri, a citizen engagement manager at CSAT, addressed the importance of
including community journalists in the five-year project funded by USAID and
Democracy International.
He said, "This project started in October 2023 and is
now in its second phase. The main aim is to mobilize civil society, engage, and
capacitate them on access to information regarding the Parliamentary Support
Program project and how they can add value in disseminating information about
the project."
Phiri added, "We are conducting a nationwide campaign
starting in January 2025, covering 12 districts of the ideal Parliament of
Malawi, and community journalists, who work at the grassroots level of the
population, are key to this project."
Phiri pointed out that training journalists to understand
parliamentary issues will improve their reporting skills and fill gaps in
public understanding of the roles of Parliament and whether it is serving the
nation.
Joseph Mwale, a bureau supervisor for the Nation newspaper,
argued that it is very difficult for government institutions to provide
information. However, Mwale added that, with the help of the Access to
Information law, journalists are able to use this opportunity to hold them
accountable.
"We have to be
there to provide checks and balances to those who are in power on public
finance management."
He encouraged journalists to interact with the communication
process and follow developments to provide checks and balances on how public
resources are used.
Dumisani Tembo, one of the participants in the CSAT
engagement, said the training was very significant for media practitioners, as
their role is to disseminate information to the general public.
"If we don’t have the right information to give the
people out there, we may not be able to do our job right. This will help us
advocate for proper engagement with Members of Parliament and hold them
accountable for public finance management." He said
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