20100409
AFRICA NEWS

he Malawi government has barred a private newspaper company Nation Publication Limited (NPL) from covering public functions.
newspaper
NPL owns The Nation, a daily newspaper, Weekend Nation, and Nation on Sunday.

AfricaNews reporter said the relationship between the government and NPL became sour on Wednesday when the publication’s reporter Dumbani Nzale was barred from covering a public function organized by the Ministry of Agriculture in Lilongwe.

The reporter, however, was asked to leave the room by the Ministry’s Principal Secretary, Dr. Andrew Daudi, who claimed to have acted on instruction from undisclosed persons.

Nzale was at the function on the instructions of NPL Bureau Chief for the Central region, Mabvuto Banda after receiving an invitation from an NGO known as Seed Trade Association of Malawi (STAM), a grouping of all seed companies in the country. The function was held at the Ministry of Agriculture’s offices at Capital Hill.

Meanwhile, the Malawi Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has condemned in strongest terms the barring of NPL from covering a public functions.

“MISA Malawi is deeply concerned with the behavior displayed by the Ministry of Agriculture. The action taken by the Ministry, in our view, is detrimental to media freedom and freedom of information which includes the right to be accorded the fullest possible facilities for access to public information as duly instituted under section 36 of the Malawi Constitution.

The event in question aimed at updating the media on underground preparations for the forthcoming congress of African Seed Companies which Malawi is expected to host in 2011. Barring the reporter from covering the function is therefore not only a direct breach of the provisions of section 36 of the Constitution but also denying a lot of Malawians their right to know,” read part of the press release signed by Chair of MISA Malawi Brian Ligomeka Ligomeka.

The institute said it is also more worrisome to note that this is the second time this year that a reporter from Nation Publications Limited has been unceremoniously chased away from a public function by government officials claiming to be acting on instructions from undisclosed persons.

This development also follows complaints from NPL that the company is no longer receiving advertisements from government. MISA Malawi’s monitoring system as well as other reports show that government departments and institutions have been directed not to advertise with any of NPL’s newspapers.