The Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) says it has launched an investigation into complaints lodged to the Commission under the Access to Information (ATI) law.
Disclosing the development, MHRC Director for Civil and Political Rights, Peter Chisi, said the Commission has received a total of four complaints since the law was operationalised last year.
Chisi said: “Let me say that of the four complaints the Commission has so far received, we have already commenced investigations into one of them and we have also plans to actually investigate another one very shortly.
“The other one is to do with information about a project in Mzuzu which is to do with Northern Region Water Board (NRWB) where some affected members that are expecting compensation on a water project wanted information on how the compensations were processed.”
He added that the Commission has also received a complaint to do with mining and usage of Covid-19 funds.
“One complaint we have received is where a stakeholder wants to know from the ministry of energy as to how many mining licenses have actually been issued out so far.
“Equally, there is another complaint which the Commission has received concerning the usage of Covid funds,” said Chisi.
The ATI law was initially assented to by former President Peter Mutharika on 10th February, 2017 and only came into operational in 2020.
