The decision to upgrade a township into a municipality is motivated by politics rather than technical aspects, and with political decisions, the best thing to do is to remain quiet unlike asking a lot of questions,” said Assistant Director for Decentralisation in the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Darwin Pangani.
Pangani’s sentiments are clear and loud. The government goofed when it elevated Luchenza Town Council into municipality when the council was yet to have even a constituency and other proper administrative structures.
Despite that being the case, Luchenza as municipality by statute is supposed to have a an autonomy in providing services to education, health, forestry, natural resources and other community services as it is the case with other 34 councils.
To put things clear, it has been seven years since the government elevated the town council into a municipality. Since then, the municipality has been implementing programmes in the education and health sectors after getting guidance or approval from Thyolo or Mulanje district councils.
Although that is the case, all councils are on the same level with no subsidiary or supervisory structure. This means, each council has autonomy within its designated local government area. This includes discretion to discharge any of their functions and set up committees for these purposes. This is the case with Luchenza municipality as confirmed through the Deputy Mayor Lawrence Mollen about the existence of several committees in the council.
According to Mollen, the committees in place look after the welfare and needs of local citizens. Observation shows that what Mollen says is in sharp contrast to what is happening on the ground. Most of the disputes and plans in the education and health sectors are forwarded to Thyolo and Mulanje districts for approval and implementation.
Adding more misery to this issue, Mollen, a ward councillor for Mapanga Ward in Mulanje South West constituency attends district executive council meetings for Thyolo as well. His colleagues from Thyolo East also do the same. However, this does not apply to the two legislators who happen to have limbs in Luchenza municipality.
Instead Member of Parliament for Mulanje South West, George Chaponda only attends council meetings in Mulanje while the legislator for Thyolo East, Greyson Timothy Solomon travels to Thyolo. These are some of the anomalies within a stream of power and politics being experienced at Luchenza Municipality.
Although the councillors attend and forward their plans to either Mulanje or Thyolo, the two councils hardly provide financial assistance for activities meant to be implemented under Luchenza municipality. The basic argument is that each council has its own vote from Central Government and it has that autonomy of implementing its development plans.
To support this process, government conducted the tripartite elections in May 2014 that saw councillors being elected. Basically, the councillors are responsible for the overall development of their areas and are required to engage local communities and other interest groups such as the private sector and NGOs in the preparation of their three-year rolling district development plans.
Sadly, since their elections into office almost two years ago, the councillors in Luchenza Municipality are concerned with lack of resources.
“The minutes that are drawn from those meetings are hardly implemented following lack of established offices like that of education and health among others who could ably mobilise resources for our plans as stipulated in the Malawi Growth Development Strategy,” said Mollen.
To make matters worse, the municipality has no single hospital and school under its management. The public health facilities and schools seen under the municipal council geographical area are managed either by Thyolo or Mulanje district councils.
“As planning authorities, we are required to prepare council development plans. Some of our developmental plans are to have our own schools and health facilities run by officers established within the municipality council,” explained Mollen.
The objectives of local government, is to further the constitutional order based on democratic principles, accountability, transparency and participation of the people in decision-making and development processes. Considering this process, each of the eight wards in the municipality has a committee that champions development activities.
But where do they forward their plans? Vice Secretary for Namisonga Ward, Godfrey Mangwale said the ward committees that were duly elected in line with the municipality by-laws channel their plans to their respective ward councillors who take the matter to the municipality council for action.
Mangwale said in most cases, communities have seen their plans and grievances taking long to be addressed and at times being shelved hence no response at all.
“For instance, if we have an issue that needs redress at Chonde Community Health Centre, we are directed to visit Mulanje District Council. Although the facility is under the geographic area for the municipality, our council has no mandate to take control of issues there,” he said.
He said such politics and anomalies could be redressed if government fully recognises the importance of establishing offices that have similar jurisdictions with those at other district or town councils to administer various issues relating to education and health.
Besides that, Mangwale noted that the council should have structures of its own, citing the constituency among others. He said having a constituency, the municipality would be benefiting from the constituency development fund that would be financing education and health projects unlike in the present situation.
Mangwale said this would also help the growth of formal settlements to replace the squatter settlements that usually house sub-standard private schools and health clinics.
In the face of these challenges, the electorates were promised a better life after electing the incumbent ward councillors.
Perhaps, such ups and down facing the communities like those in Luchenza prompted the National Democratic Institute (NDI) to call for the implementation of the initial social contracts, the voters and electorates agreed prior to the May 2014 tripartite elections.
In ensuring that the social contracts are implemented, NDI
among others, is working with 16 NGOs across the country providing technical and financial assistance to put an accountability mechanism between the community and authorities.
NDI, Resident Country Director, Sandy Quimbaya, said one of the mechanisms in ensuring that the social contracts were implemented was to come up with citizen charter. This is a document that contains key education and health issues which the elected leaders pledged to fulfil upon taking their respected office.
“Pacenet [Pan African Civic Educators Network] has got two of these social contracts to follow up with the councilors on these commitments. Part of what NDI would be doing in helping Pacenet is also helping the community to do expenditure tracking,” said Quimbaya.
She said such mechanism would help the elected leaders to respond to the needs and concerns of the community.
Pacenet Board Chairperson, Anthony Kasunda, said the launch and signing of the charter in February this year is a commitment that the people of Luchenza are geared at improving service delivery especially in the education and health sectors.
“The whole process of coming up with the citizen charter has been consultative and done under the banner of promoting transparency and accountability in the delivery of social services in the municipality of Luchenza,” Kasunda said.
He said the charter sets out targets to be achieved in the next three years and places responsibility on both the council and the citizenry to achieve these targets.
Kasunda prayed that the citizenry will own the charter and safeguard its fulfillment and “ensure that delivery of education and health services are the responsibility of everyone and not government alone.”
Mayor of the municipality, Harold Kaliwo told the council during the launch of the charter that the councillors have been given a huge task to fulfill because they do not have resources to achieve the goals set in the charter.
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