?By Alick Junior Sichali
Human Rights Defenders Forum is not ruling out mobilizing Malawians for another anti-government demonstration arguing President Peter Mutharika’s administration continues ignoring voices of reason on governance issues.
Chairperson for the Forum, Timothy Mtambo, has revealed this; saying they will soon call for the protests as authorities have failed to address their grievances presented during the 27th April demonstrations.
Mtambo adds the prolonged silence by the current administration on issues of public interest attests to its disregard of people’s sufferings.
According to Mtambo government’s failure to address issues which were raised in April 27 nationwide protests petition, is a clear indication that it is not concerned with livelihood of average Malawians.
“Government failure to address concerns of Malawians shows that they don’t care about the needs of ordinary Malawians, this is why we will call again for national wide demonstrations,” Mtambo said.
He said as 90 days have elapsed, the civil rights grouping is not satisfied with how government has acted on the concerns.
The Human Rights Defenders Forum Chairperson said the persistent power outage situation and rampant corruption in civil service are the challenges government should have prioritised to deal with.
Mtambo said the civil rights activists are exploring various avenues; as they have also asked speaker of parliament to call for an emergency impeachment process.
“President Peter Mutharika has failed to serve Malawians hence the request for the impeachment process, we want the voices of Malawians be heard, its them who voted for the leaders into office,” He added.
The April 27 petition among other things asked President Mutharika to suspend finance minister Goodall Gondwe and local government minister Kondwani Nankhumwa for their involvement in controversial 4 billion Kwacha.
The petition, also requested the head of state to institute an inquiry on where the developmental funding was sourced.
High unemployment rate amongst the youths and clear strategies to deal away with the frequent blackouts was also other issues that were raised in the petition.
