MZUZU BUSINESS COMMUNITY SHUN GOVERNANCE MEETING

BY DRAXON MALOYA

There was drama when the business and property owners in the city of Mzuzu shunned the capacity building for governance structures in development planning system and public expenditure day long meeting on Monday.

Some members of the business owners are reported to have stayed away from the meeting because they received communication from MCC whom they accuse to have a tradition of not providing allowances to participants despite keeping them for a long time although the meetings benefit the large part of the community.

Organized by three non-governmental organizations namely: find Your Feet, Church and Society and the Youth and Society, the meeting was aimed at providing a platform where the business community would engage Mzuzu City Council officials on urban governance issues.

The Project Officer at Find Your Feet, Robert Ndovi said it has been a huge disappointment to find out that the Mzuzu business community could lose such an opportunity to engage responsible duty bearers on a platform where they could raise all their grievances.

“It is quite disheartening to see our business community members shunning this important meeting which could have provided an engagement opportunity with duty bearers like those from the council, Escom and even Northern Region Water Board,” Ndovi said.

One of the seven participants who turned up for the meeting, the chairperson for Chibanja Sew Millers Association, Chipoka Kamanga expressed dismay with the cancellation of the meeting saying it could have provided an opportunity for his association to iron out differences with other Stakeholders.

“We were told to relocate to another place at Luwinga where there is no even a single electric pole so can we run our machines,they say we were providing an environment which is not conducive for human healthy living, so may be our grievances could be addressed today,” Kamanga said.

Find Your Feet, Church and Society and the Youth and Society are implementing the programme, Promoting Urban Governance through Active Citizenship and Stakeholders Engagement with financial assistance from Tilitonse Fun