Empowering Journalists for Parliamentary oversight

*Empowering Journalists for Parliamentary oversight* 

By Clara Wadi 

The Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency (CSAT) empowered community journalists to understand and add value to the Parliamentary Support Program project.

During the media engagement session held at Chatonda Lodge, Moffat Phiri, a citizen engagement manager at CSAT, addressed the importance of including community journalists in the five-year project funded by USAID and Democracy International.

He said, "This project started in October 2023 and is now in its second phase. The main aim is to mobilize civil society, engage, and capacitate them on access to information regarding the Parliamentary Support Program project and how they can add value in disseminating information about the project."

Phiri added, "We are conducting a nationwide campaign starting in January 2025, covering 12 districts of the ideal Parliament of Malawi, and community journalists, who work at the grassroots level of the population, are key to this project."

Phiri pointed out that training journalists to understand parliamentary issues will improve their reporting skills and fill gaps in public understanding of the roles of Parliament and whether it is serving the nation.

Joseph Mwale, a bureau supervisor for the Nation newspaper, argued that it is very difficult for government institutions to provide information. However, Mwale added that, with the help of the Access to Information law, journalists are able to use this opportunity to hold them accountable.

 "We have to be there to provide checks and balances to those who are in power on public finance management."

He encouraged journalists to interact with the communication process and follow developments to provide checks and balances on how public resources are used.

Dumisani Tembo, one of the participants in the CSAT engagement, said the training was very significant for media practitioners, as their role is to disseminate information to the general public.

"If we don’t have the right information to give the people out there, we may not be able to do our job right. This will help us advocate for proper engagement with Members of Parliament and hold them accountable for public finance management." He said