CoST- The Infrastructure Transparency Initiative, under the National Construction Industry Council, has rolled out Malawi’s first ever Infrastructure Analytic Dashboard at a ceremony in Lilongwe on the 3rd of May, 2024.
Speaking when he officially launched the dashboard, the Minister of Information and Digitisation, Hon. Moses Kumkuyu reiterated government’s commitment to ensuring that the citizenry have access to information on their government especially on the social-economic developments that are in line with Agenda 2063. He therefore commended the dashboard development as a step in the right direction ensuring inclusivity in the development agenda for Malawi. He also indicated his excitement with the honour of launching the information tool during a day when the world over celebrates World Press Freedom. He expressed hope that Malawians and other stakeholders will take advantage of the tool to actively engage duty bearers on the state of infrastructure development projects from an informed position.
On his part, chairperson of the multistakeholder group of CoST Malawi, Mr. Joe Ching’ani, expressed joy at the strides that the Malawi program has made in ensuring more transparency and accountability in the construction sector. While narrating the long walk that CoST Malawi has traded on, Ching’ani could not hide his joy with the milestones attained by the program in serving the information needs of Malawians by shining light in the technical domain of infrastructure development. He further expressed gratitude to the country’s head of state, His Excellency President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, for leading by example by taking up leadership of the CoST Malawi program as it’s Champion and providing valuable advice to it.
Taking his turn, host of the CoST Malawi program, the National Construction Industry Council re-emphasized it’s support to the trail brazing program indicating that it’s aspirations speak very well to its strategic aspirations. NCIC’s chief executive officer, Eng. Gerald Khonje said that CoST’s vision for ‘Quality Infrastructure, Stronger Economies, Better Lives‘ is well aligned to his institution’s vision of a ‘Transformed, sustainable and Quality driven Construction Industry‘. He said through the CoST program, the Council has learnt and adopted many useful approaches including Disclosure and Assurance which they now call Infrastructure Technical Audits which are beneficial in identifying red flags as well as documenting best practices.
In random interviews, stakeholders to the workshop expressed joy with the development saying information pertaining to infrastructure development projects in Malawi is becoming more accessible and more informative.