DPP’s demand for PAC to change agenda rejected: Cedep wants democracy watchdog to walk the talk

Centre for the Development of People (Cedep) Executive Director, Gift Trapence said the 5+1 All-Inclusive Stakeholders Conference organized by the Public Affairs Committee (Pac) is a make-or-break moment for the quasi-religious body, and has since demanded the grouping to start walking the talk rather than coming up with shopping-list during its conferences.

Politicians from the ruling and opposition parties, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), religious organizations, human rights activists and economists as well as ordinary Malawians are currently attending the two-day conference being held at mount Soche hotel in Blantyre under the theme ‘The State of Governance And Public Trust: Reclaiming Our destiny’.

Despite that all-inclusive conferences usually come up with commendable resolutions, there has been concerns of lack of efforts to implement such resolutions.

And the concerns have been echoed by Trapence and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who have since demanded Pac to start implementing some of the resolutions that are proposed during the all-inclusive conferences if the country is to develop.

“This meeting will make or break Pac. Malawians have high hopes that such meeting will change their lives. And as civil society organization we want to see what we are discussing will achieve to change the lives of Malawians,” said Trapence.

Trapence in an interview on the sideline of the two-day conference said there was need for a change of approach in how Pac implements its resolutions as most of them usually become irrelevant with time.

“It’s not time to come up with shopping-list, there is a need to come up with strategies on how to resolutions are going to be implemented. We are good at talking but not good at implementing these resolutions,” added Trapence.

And former ruling Peoples Party (PP) publicity secretary now member of DPP, ken Msonda requested the conference to change its agenda arguing none of Pac’s resolutions from previous conferences were implemented.

However, Msonda’s proposition was shot down by the delegates to the conference. There were fears that Pac will use the meeting to push for change of government.

“This meeting should have been a follow up on the other conference held last year. Our expectations are that we should be getting report on what has been achieved and what is remaining to be achieved. We seem not to be making progress because we keep on sweeping under the carpet what was proposed in previous conferences,” argued Msonda.

Msonda said DPP has faith in Pac and expressed hope that the current conference would change approach in how Pac resolutions are implemented.