National Initiative for Civic Education organization (NICE) has embark on voice and accountability sanitization campaign in the country urging the community to demand services that they are lacking from the duty bearers saying it is their right to do so as stipulated in the state constitution.
Speaking during a two days training of NICE volunteers in Karonga the northern part of Malawi, the Regional Civic Education Officer Vincent Kalawa said government is not fair with the community especially those from rural areas on how issues of paramount important are being handled.
According to Kalawa, people from rural areas are facing various challenges which need to be addressed by the government but the state is doing nothing to improve the living standard of poor Malawian.
“It not a hidden issue anymore that our government has failed the people in the country as such as NICE we have embarked on Voice and Accountability sanitization through our volunteers which are a close the country even in the remote areas to empower the community to demand solutions to the problems that they are encountering,” said Kalawa.
Adding that “it is very supersizing that now people in the community are just used to experience problems that the government has the solution it because it is their right to have them and it’s a worrisome situation that most of hospitals in the rural areas lacks medicine even portable water is not there things that are very crucial to a human being hence we will make sure that through this campaign effective social transformation is seen.”
In her remarks the District Civic Education Officer Christobel Shaba said government is mandated to give people back their money through developmental projects in their areas.
“This is a 18 months project which we are calling it Program Estimate3 (PE3) emphasizing on voice and accountability which is a result base program to ensure that people move from right abused to right granted because the constitution is behind them in every activity that they can embark on due to the democratic government we are in, the community have the right to demand duty bearers to address problems in their areas,” said Shaba.
One of the volunteers who attended the training Ester Nyirenda commended the development saying it is an eye opener to the community.
“Indeed people in the rural areas we are coming from there are a number of challenges that the community are facing but they are not doing anything to bring a change hence with this training we are going to make sure that our fail Malawians in the villages understand their right to demand services from duty bearers without fear,” Nyirenda.
At the end of training all 30 volunteers were given bicycles to help them in carrying the job effectively.
