ActionAid Malawi asks youth to demand accountability on tax justice 

ActionAid Malawi  (AAM) has implored young people to demand accountability on tax justice so that gender responsive public services are properly financed.

AAM programme specialist, Yandura Chipeta said this in Lilongwe on Friday during the virtual meeting of the Tax Justice Webinar Series: socially just public financing systems which are aimed at building capacity of youth on tax justice.

“We want young people to effectively engage with government and other stakeholders in relation to the provision of gender responsive public services and issues affecting them,” she said.

Chipeta said it was very important for young people to mobilise, organise and demand for tax justice and gender responsive public services because these are services they are entitled to and government has a duty to provide these services be it in agriculture, health, education among others.

She added that young people should be at the fore front of making sure that government was utilising locally available resources through the revenue collected.

“We are mainly looking at what they have done in engaging with government as youth, where the gaps are and what else can they do differently in order for them to engage with government,” Chipeta said.

National Coordinator for Action Aid Youth, Activists Willard Kaluwa said young people are custodians of the future and if they are left behind today in making decisions then the country should expect a future that its decisions are not owned by the leaders of that time.

“Today’s revenue collection you would find that we are unable to generate enough to invest at the moment as such most of the investments are from borrowed money which tells us that we are borrowing resources from the future,” he said.

Kaluwa added that, “Those debts will need to be covered by young people who will be leaders tomorrow and at that time they will be responsible to bear a burden that we have utilize resources today.”

He said it was important that young people to advocate for tax justice so that as a country at present should be able to generate resources for investment to avoid limiting the future generations to meet their needs with their resources at that time.