{"id":68739,"date":"2018-07-27T11:30:52","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T09:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=68739"},"modified":"2018-07-27T11:30:52","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T09:30:52","slug":"inspector-general-rebuffs-csos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/07\/27\/inspector-general-rebuffs-csos\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspector General rebuffs CSOs"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY MACDONALD THOM:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Inspector General of the Malawi Police Service Rodney Jose<\/a> has said he will not meet civil society organisation (CSO) leaders on issues pertaining to deaths of former University of Malawi\u2019s The Polytechnic student Robert Chasowa and Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director of corporate affairs Issa Njauju<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On July 17 2018, CSOs, under the banner Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC), wrote Jose, seeking an audience with him to discuss the death of the two citizens.<\/p>\n

The CSOs also wanted to discuss issues relating to a leaked ACB report<\/a> on investigations into a K2.8 billion food rations contract.<\/p>\n

National Police spokesperson, James Kadadzera, said responses to the two issues were provided by a committee President Peter Mutharika set up to look into the concerns CSOs raised in a petition they delivered to the President during the April 27 2018 demonstrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave the answers already to a committee that was instituted by the Head of State. The committee delivered its responses to the CSOs. Therefore, there could be no reason for them to meet the IG,\u201d Kadadzera said.<\/p>\n

He also said it is surprising that the same CSOs that were against Jose\u2019s appointment could seek an audience with the same person they loathed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the same CSOs which branded the IG a murder suspect and vigorously tried to block his confirmation [by Parliament]. Even when the IG was confirmed, they still branded him a human rights violator. It is very ironic that they want to meet the person now,\u201d Kadadzera said.<\/p>\n

HRDC Chairperson, Timothy Mtambo, has since described Jose\u2019s refusal to grant them an audience as unfortunate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is actually very sad and very disappointing that a public officer, a public institution, a servant of the people, would reject a discussion on issues of national importance. We have to remind them that those [public offices] are not their personal estates and they can choose what to do and what to say to the people. Those are our servants. I am very shocked that the Malawi Police Service would do that because the issues that we wanted to discuss with them are of national interest,\u201d Mtambo said.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThese are issues they are investigating and we think they have been investigating forever. We, as citizens, have the right to ask the duty bearers to account [for their actions]. We are shocked. Maybe the IG still has issues with us because we were against his candidature. The fact is we still stand by our position because our position was based on principle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chasowa was found dead at The Polytechnic in 2011 while Njauju was found dead behind presidential villas in 2015.<\/p>\n

In a response to the two issues, Chief Secretary to the Government, Lloyd Muhara, said the government is committed to having ongoing investigations concluded.<\/p>\n

On Njauju murder, for instance, Muhara said the government has sought assistance from cooperating partners, including the United Kingdom, which, he said, had offered technical expertise to those probing the issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY MACDONALD THOM: Inspector General of the Malawi Police Service Rodney Jose has said he will not meet civil society organisation (CSO) leaders on issues pertaining to deaths of former University of Malawi\u2019s The Polytechnic student Robert Chasowa and Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director of corporate affairs Issa Njauju. On July 17 2018, CSOs, under the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68742,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68739\/revisions\/68742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}