17 Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you. – Hebrews 13:17
Let’s face it, I Janet Zeenat Karim, fully being of sound mind, and body, would never make a good politician, nor would my stay in whatever cabinet portfolio or member of parliament for whatever constituency I was given or elected into; I would not last very long in that category of work. I’m a journalist; been a journalist, and we operate with different modus operandi. I get research (snoop as in spy for) information.
I process it and DISSEMINATE, RELEASE, PUBLISH, SPREAD it like wild forest fire. Politicians on the other hand, get or are given information, they process it and categorize or classify it, and RELEASE IN TOTAL OR PART OF IT, ALL “ON A NEED TO KNOW” BASIS. For the politician some information is classified as TOP SECRET, some as SECRET, others as UNCLASSIFIED, and many others as mere FOR PUBLIC USE or RELEASE.
Notably, however, various actors in and outside government are confusing their duties. For example, the President, VP, ministers, MPs, and Judges take an oath of office. And these, therefore, all over the world take oaths before they assume the authority of the said offices. This is how global governments are run or operate.
For example, in the military, late Amy General Manken Chigawa schooled me in 1994 that “there is no democracy in the military. And there are no memoirs from anybody in that sector of Malawi’s history.
There is nothing undemocratic about it. That is a fact. Likewise, media operators, sometimes get information, wisdom should dictate to any editor, where to draw the line in press freedom: remember, we get information, process it, and disseminate. There are times when stories must be spiked.
I give an example of a “scoop” one of my journalists received: “The wife of the former Malawi Vice President was crying all night; the reason was that she was upset that her husband was joining the Malawi Congress Party (had imprisoned him for many years).” This was a story that would demean a giant, and family relation, so I told the team that I would personally call the MCP VP (Malawi was still in the one-party government). After the formalities (How are you, uncle, yaddy, yaddy yadda) I spoke my reason for the call.
To this day, I still get shockwaves as he asked me a question that was as plain as sunlight on a cloudless day: “Janet, let me ask you,” the VP said, “If my wife is crying in our bed every night, who would be the one person to know about it? Your informers or me?”
The story was spiked. And rightly so too, should a lot of stories that make it to our front pages. I give two: “Send back to South Africa Shepherd Bushiri,” “The spilling the beans of some disgruntled former cabinet ministers. On Bushiri, he has become Malawi’s beacon of hope of being the relevant religious operative. On the disgruntled former cabinet minister, or that the media reporting his rants, would remind said former leader of his oath of office.
Example, an April 2024 media report states that former cabinet minister Timothy Mtambo had joined the Alliance for Democracy (Aford) and party president Enoch Chihana welcomed the Citizens for Transformation leader at a political rally two months after a cabinet reshuffle that had removed him out of his cabinet post.
He is the former minister of National Unity and was leveling accusations that the Tonse Alliance administration (of which he had been part of) had failed to deliver (during) its four years of being in power.
Mtambo has been speaking at a news conference and quoted for saying that “the Tonse Government (of which he has been part of since 2020) has failed to take Malawians to the Promised Land.”
“This is clearly not the change we all aspired for and for sure we cannot keep quiet as citizens; we have a duty to actively participate,” Mtambo said. He called himself commander-in-chief of Citizens for Transformation. Apart from these rants, Mtambo appears to be divulging information that are part of his appointed position of a cabinet minister.
In my research for this article, I found on the website of the Malawi Legal Information Institute (MalawiLII), The Laws of Malawi, Chap 17:01 on Promissory Oaths. This shows the 8 different forms government officers in the three branches of government take in Malawi before the ascend into their elected or appointed positions.
The three branches of the Malawi Government are the Executive (President, Vice President, and Cabinet Ministers), the Legislature (Members of Parliament), and the Judiciary (the Justices in the Magistrates, the High Court, and The Supreme Court). In the oaths taken by cabinet minister in Form 3, it states:
The Promissory Oath Form 3 is the Oath of a cabinet minister. In it, the oath states:
I, …………………………………………………….. being chosen and appointed as a Member of the Cabinet of Malawi, swear that I will, to the best of my judgment, at all times when thereto required freely give any counsel or advice to the President for the time being for the good management of the public affairs of Malawi, that I will well and truly serve the Republic of Malawi in the office of a Member of the Cabinet and that, except with the authority of the President, I will not directly or indirectly reveal the business or proceedings of the Cabinet or the nature or contents of any document communicated to me as a Member of the Cabinet, and that I will serve truly and faithfully as a Minister. So help me God.
So God help a former cabinet minister who forgets this section of the oath he or she took, that states “…. except with the authority of the President, I will not directly or indirectly reveal the business or proceedings of the Cabinet or the nature or contents of any document communicated to me as a Member of the Cabinet….”
Divulging of government information is made on a need-to-know basis. Do Malawians need to know all the intricacies that take place in Cabinet meetings? On the other hand, even being out of office, Mtambo is not absolved and still cannot, must not divulge information he got while he was an office bearer.
Other government officials, likewise, must adhere to their oaths of office taken. On our part, journalists and public guests let us play our roles well through the provision of freedom of speech. It is well catalogued that freedoms like freedom of the press, speech, religion, and the other freedoms, come with responsibilities.
Many people in and outside Malawi have been crying out that there are no memoirs of government officials that served under Kamuzu. They operated on the premise that “government secrets are government secrets.” FULL STOP. Doing contrary to this is tantamount to breaking one’s oath of office, that could be termed criminal and treasonous. Right now, in the biggest democracy, a former leader is in court after being found in his custody various classified documents as top secret.
Mtambo’s removal was done with the removal (rightly done) of current Secretary-generals of political parties. I would not call the removal from cabinet of Patricia Kaliati, Mkaka and the other party S-Gs out of their ministerial positions as a good and democratic one. They were removed from a pointed reference.
Malawi has even long discussed the issue of the dual roles of an MP that doubles up with a cabinet position. This was brought to Malawians’ attention in a ruling by Justice Mwaulungu in a 1994/5 decision. He argued that MPs doubling up as cabinet ministers, actually have two government jobs.
While the Executive branch has continually looked at the doubling of roles as beneficial (the executive has its people in the House), it makes a mockery of the separation of powers (executive, judiciary, and legislature). Imagine it: a minister is a member of the executive and also a parliamentarian (legislature). No separation of powers here.
Let us claim, exercise, and enjoy our freedoms. Elected and appointed leaders must also take seriously the various oaths of offices that they made. Even when one is no longer serving in the position where the oath was made, responsibility must be taken not to release information that was received while sitting in the plush chair of an elected or appointed position.
Let us exercise our freedoms responsibly. Long Live Malawi democracy! We are 60 years old and still smiling!