The Independent Complaints Commission (ICC) has deployed its staff across 23 districts to ensure election-related police complaints are addressed quickly and effectively.
In a written response, on Friday, Commissioner Christopher Tukula explained that election cycles typically produce a surge in grievances, prompting the commission to streamline its operations for this critical period.
Tukula said each of the 23 districts now has a dedicated ICC officer serving as the primary point of contact for complaints. He added that a team of roving investigators, based at regional centres, stands ready to deploy wherever additional investigative support is needed.
Tukula: Our priority is timely
investigations. I Nation
Five districts—Mzimba, Chikwawa, Chitipa, Neno and Machinga—do not yet have stationed officers, but to increase their accessibility, Tukula explained that they have partnered with National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust and have trained all its observers at constituency level to assist with documentation of possible lapses in police conduct and professionalism while their officers remain at district level.
“Our priority is timely investigations. We have beefed up our investigations team and with support from UNDP [United Nations Development Programme], we have intensified training aimed at building capacity to handle election related police complaints in a timeous and efficient manner.
“Our officers are deployed to various districts and in conjunction with other institutions like National Initiative for Civic Education [Nice] Trust, we have instituted a real time system for receiving, aggregating, vetting, approving and allocating investigations,” he said.
According to an election-related activities report we have seen, ICC has been integrated into Nice Trust’s Election Situation Room (ESR) Programme to be hosted at Sunbird Capital in Lilongwe where four of the commission’s senior staff members will be stationed.
Reads part of the report: “Their role will be to provide strategic oversight, guide ICC district teams on the handling of complaints originating from polling centres and serve as the central hub for coordinating and resolving police-related complaints in real time.”
Nice Trust executive director Gray Kalindekafe said they have trained 509 ward-level observers and 6 331 stationed polling centres on servers specifically to document potential lapses in police conduct and professionalism during the elections.
“Nice Trust is involved as a key partner in ICC’s oversight initiatives. This partnership fosters transparency, accountability and public trust in the police and the overall electoral process.
Centre for Multiparty Democracy executive director Boniface Chibwana hailed the move as good preparation from ICC, saying there is need to deal with each and every complaint decisively and expeditiously.
He said: “Effective electoral dispute resolutions entails that safeguard mechanisms are put in place to deal with eventualities and what ICC has done is commendable.”
