Purple Innovation Equips Northern Region Scribes on Public Funds Expenditure Tracking

BY DRAXON MALOYA

As one way of ensuring accountability in governance structures, a non-profit women and girls rights organization, Purple Innovation for women and girls has trained Mzuzu based journalists on investigative skills in tracking use public funds.

The training which was tailor made to provide a critical understanding on how state resources meant to save lives are spent to fight curable diseases like cholera and Covid-19, drew both seasoned and upcoming scribes from training institutions.

Speaking after the two day training workshop, Purple Innovations for women and girls Executive Director, Patricia Mtungira hailed both the experienced and upcoming journalists for their commitment to sharpen their skills.

“Corruption is evil, by training the journalists we believe they will do more in as far as playing their watchdog role is concerned. They will be exposing the rot that is derailing growth and development,” Mtungira said.

One of the journalists who took part in the training, Blair Mhone, hailed the organization for the training which he said is a refresher to most journalists as it brought about some new components in investigative journalism.

“This was an inspiration to most journalists who have stayed a little longer without a refresher course, this will go a long way in helping most of us tracking public funds. Investigative journalism helps us to hold duty bearers accountable for their actions and that is one of our call values,” Mhone said.

One of the workshop facilitators, Collins Mtika also echoed the sentiments by saying he was overwhelmed with an active participation of the journalists throughout the presentations.

The training is part of the an eight month fellowship project that is supporting a total of 20 journalists working with support from the Africa Alliance and National Democratic Institute.