Malawi parley: Opposition DPP legislator pushes for removal of data expiry time

BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—Member of Parliament for Thyolo Central Ben Phiri, who is also a member of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has moved a motion asking the house through its committees to work with the Ministry of Information to engage telecommunication service providers in revisiting the practice of setting an expiry time frame for data bundles.

According to the motion, Phiri said the practice by mobile phone operators is a great concern to subscribers as it extremely disadvantages the ordinary citizens and is counterproductive to government’s intention of making internet accessible to everyone.

“Madam speaker and fellow members, we wish we knew where they throw these rotten bundles so that we can go there and probably get the rotten ones and use them. These acts negatively affect most Malawians who are failing to afford internet services,” said Phiri.

The motion was seconded by Lilongwe Msozi South legislator Liana Kakhobwe Chapota who explained that the trend gives limitations to subscribers in terms of making internet access available to every citizen in Malawi.

Malawians have been complaining of high costs of internet data bundles, but the service providers have severally attributed it to unfavourable taxes they remit to the government.

Maneno Chimulala

I am a journalist, educator, and activist with passion for telling stories about social justice, sports and political issues. I graduated from Mzuzu University. I started my career at the Maravi Post online publication in 2012 as an intern while in college. Upon graduating from Mzuzu University I was offered a job as Sports Reporter because of my background as a goalkeeper and rose to the position of sub editor. I also had a short stint with Nyasatimes, Malawi Punch and Malawi Digest. Over the past seven years, I have worked intimately with rural organizations and communities in Malawi on human rights, girl child education and grassroots development projects. With an academic background in education, I also volunteer as male champion for girls’ education under Girls Empowerment Networks (GENET) in Malawi’s South West Education Division (SWED).