The government of Malawi adopted and consented to observe the human rights terms in 1994. These terms were written down in the constitution of the Republic of Malawi. These Human Rights terms were extracted from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which was established in 1948 soon after the woes of Second World War (WW2).
And since that time when democracy weaved Malawi, the government has been trying to meet the rights of its citizens like its civil servants.
To begin with the government is doing a lot of activities to ensure observation of human rights of those who when employed by the government become civil servants. The government is providing jobs every year specifically more to ministry of health where nurses, doctors, clinicians and others are being employed; ministry of agriculture where agricultural practitioners are being employed, just to mention a few ministries.
The government of Malawi again does not freeze salaries-maintaining the same salaries for a long period of time.
The government also allows operation of Non Governmental Organizations to help meet enforcement of human rights both in the civil service as well as in the private sector. For example Federation for Disability Organizations in Malawi (FEDOMA) is fighting for fair treatment of disabled civil servants physically, socially, economically - thus for them to pocket what can make their lives manageable for example.
But the fact is that although the government is doing all the activities mentioned above, civil servants still fail to meet their basic needs. Some of such practices and rights affected are discussed below.
The government of Malawi does not balance the remuneration package between those who are highly paid and those who are lowery paid. For example with recent broadcast by Zodiak Radio Station, the Chief Secretary of the treasury of the government Mr. Mwanamvekha pockets MK4.5 million a month yet a primary teacher pockets in MK18, 000 a month. Again it is expensive for civil servants to access loans from the commercial banks because they cannot stand collateral demand. For example, according to the latest statistical figure of the total number of civil servants which is about 169, 000, less than 9, 000 employees dominate by pocketing a lions share which enable them meet their basic needs with surpluses which meet their leisure expenses. Further more, apart from many receiving low salaries, the government increases tax each time it increases civil servants salaries and practically net salary does not significantly change by percentage.
The rights affected in this case therefore include right to economic issues. Low salaries of civil servants deny them exercise of right to economic activity. According to (The constitution of Malawi 2000: 18 section 29) every person shall have the right freely to engage in economic activity, to work and pursue a livelihood anywhere in Malawi. This right is however prolonged with civil servants difficulty to access bank loans as they fail to comply with collateral terms.
With low salaries to most civil servants means good and balanced diet cannot be met as even locally produced foods like fruits , meat, milk, cooking oil are exorbitant to repetitively buy for domestic consumption because of poor economic principles that are currently controlling this country. The World Health Organization recommends that balanced diet is a grand contributor to good health. And with the effects of HIV/AIDS pandemic means more money is needed to meet health related demands to meet proper medication apart from free ARV’s drugs that the government provides.
The right affected here is the right to medication. (ILO 2001: 16) argues that solidarity, care and support are critical elements that should guide a work place in responding to HIV/AIIDS. Mechanisms should be created to encourage openness, acceptance and support for those workers who disclose their HIV status, and ensure that they are not discriminated against nor stigmatized...Where health-care exist at the work place, appropriate treatment should be provided.
Another factor for example is that teachers, police officers, very few of them do manage educate their children and themselves. This is because they pocket in little to meet ever growing demands of education particularly secondary and college or university education. Such civil servants who are in majority their right to education is affected.
These civil servants lack health and clean water and proper accommodation. Here the right to health issues is affected.
Magnifying the fact that majority of civil servants do not meet their basic needs and comparing them to a few who meet their basic needs and manage to save excess for leisure, the right to equality here is affected. Discrimination of persons in any form is prohibited and all persons, under law, guaranteed equal and effective protection against discrimination on grounds of race, color, sex, language , religion, political or other opinion, nationality, ethnic and social origin, disability, property, birth or other status (Constitution of Malawi 2000: 16 section 20(1)).
Lastly, the empirical observation that majority of civil servants who are mostly located in rural areas fail to meet their basic needs like good shelter, good food, clean and health water, education and access to loans as another form of financial support; and considering that pension schemes are no longer reliable because of continuous slashes due to political selfishness, civil servants are denied the right to economic development. This is argued by the (Constitution of Malawi 2000: 18 section 30(1)) that all persons and people have a right to economic development and therefore to the enjoyment of economic, social, cultural and political development and women, children and the disabled in particular shall be given special consideration in the application of this right.
The observation of this discussion practically entails that with this situation hitting majority of civil servants, these civil servants wont deliver expert and professional service because their high effort will be transferred else where they can get a favorable package to add to what they get from government for survival and possibly economic growth.
Finally the government of Malawi in its democratic reign has to consider observation of the rights of civil servants as human beings. (www.unhchr.com) argues that respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms without distinction of any kind is a fundamental rule of international human rights law.
REFERENCES
The Government of Malawi. 2000. The Constitution of the Republic of Malawi. Lilongwe: PAC & Design Printers
International Labor Organization. 2001. An ILO code of practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work. Geneva: International Labor Office.
UNHCHR. 1948. Vienna Declaration and Program of Action. Accessed at http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huricda.nsf/(symbol)/A.CONF.157.23.En? [9/29/2006]
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