By Lusekero Mhango
KARONGA-(MaraviPost)-Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) under the Karonga Diocese has underscored the importance of involving community leaders in the issues of extractive industry saying their participation is key to advocating for the rights of communities where minerals are being extracted.
The faith-based organization made the call recently in the district during an engagement orientation that drew participation from Ward Councillors, Traditional Leaders and members of Civil Society Organizations (CSO’s) under their project Actions by Communities Towards Inclusive and Valuable Extractive for Malawian with financial support from Australian Aid through Oxfam.
The engagement also come amid several incidents in the country where communities have closed mining activities down due to failure by mining companies to for fill their corporate social responsibility including at Ilomba mine in Chitipa.
Speaking in an interview CCJP Desk Officer in the Karonga Diocese Lewis Nkhatha, said local communities are often victims of negative effects of mining as they are not benefiting from the extractive minerals that are happening in their localities.
He said, due to their outreach and influence at local level community leaders are best placed to advocate for the rights of communities by taking to task the legal and corporate duty bearers.
“The community leaders are very influential in the society hence our engagement with them on extractive mining as we know their voice is a powerful tool that can be used to advocate for the needs and the views of communities to investors to influence development in the areas where there is mining,” he said.
One of the participants to the training Sidney Simwaka chairperson for CSO’s in Chitipa, expressed gratitude to the organization for bringing several influential groups in the society together to bang heads on issues of the extractive industry in Karonga and Chitipa.
adding, the engagement meeting was an eye opener hence was grateful for the knowledge gained.
However, Kilopola Area Development Committee (ADC) chairperson George Mwafulilwa, urged communities to rise and start demanding for their rights to development in their areas by among others taking mining investors to task on social immunities in the localities where mining is taking place.
“Its about time our communities rose up and started demanding their right to development as far too long we have been taking for a ride by the mining investors who have taken advantage of us hence where mining is taking place. we need to rise up for ourselves and communities,” Mwafulilwa articulated.
