The demand follows a series of Civil Society Regional Workshops in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu hosted by the CoST Malawi Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG). Attended by over 50 participants, the workshops aimed to build demand for transparency and accountability in Malawi’s construction sector. MEJN is a civil society representative on the MSG.

The MSG requested that civil society organisations advocate the enactment of legislation that will promote transparency and accountability and to encourage public procuring entities to release project information into the public domain. They also requested that they sensitize the public to demand and act on the project information in order to make the public construction sector in Malawi transparent and accountable.

Lyford Gideon, CoST Malawi Coordinator, stated that the response was overwhelming with participants remarking that CoST is a very useful initiative which will not only curb mismanagement in public infrastructure development but also prevent injury and death as has happened in other countries in the recent past.

Regional workshops were also held for the media with 70 media professionals attending. The participants expressed a lot of enthusiasm for playing a greater role in promoting information disclosure and acting as a ‘watch dog’ to ensure transparency.