The Human Rights Defenders Coalition – HRDC has called for transparency and accountability on how funds meant for the fight against the spread of coronavirus in the country are being used.

HRDC Chairperson, Gift Trapence, made the call during a news conference on Wednesday morning in Lilongwe.

He also urged government through the responsible Ministerial Committee on COVID-19 to refrain from politicizing the deadly pandemic.

Trapence said: “We can only defeat COVID-19 if we have a multi-sectoral approach because we don’t want this pandemic to be politicized and we want government to be transparent enough in terms of response.

“We would want to know where they are getting the resources, how they have been raised and where are we allocating them.”

He highlighted that politicians are greedy and can abuse the resources and that is why they need to be checked.

“We have seen already that some politicians would want to use coronavirus for campaign purposes,” said Trapense.

HRDC has therefore assured Malawians that the coalition will continue organizing demonstrations, after the COVID-19 pandemic as one way of fighting for human rights in the country.

The press briefing was the first since Timothy Ntambo resigned from the position of chairperson for the grouping.