Janet Chikaya-Banda is a Malawian lawyer who became the Solicitor General and a Principal Secretary.
Banda was born in 1970 in Malosa hospital in Zomba which was then the capital of Malawi. She was the sixth of eight children. After her primary education she went to Mangochi to attend St Michaels Girls Secondary School. In 1988 she opted to study Social Sciences at Chancellor College but she decided that the available jobs would exceed the large number of students she witnessed on the course so she switched to law. She graduated and took a job as a lawyer. Unwanted attention caused her to leave that practice and take a job at the Ministry of Justice. She found her career and she was able to take a masters at the University of Georgia and a doctorate at London's Birkbeck College.
In 2012 she published,"Duty of care constitutional and law reform, in Malawi". Hannah Gibson was a co-author. The book launch in Lilongwe was hosted by the British think tank Africa Research Institute. She gave a speech and replies included one made by Anthony Kamanga who was the Solicitor General. Kamanga moved to be Attorney General and Janet Chikaya Banda was his replacement even though she could not be consulted. She was on holiday. She was Solicitor General for three weeks before she knew about it.
She responded on behalf on the government in 2015 to pressure from the UN, the USA and Europe to abolish the death penalty and to legalise homosexuality. On the former she noted that no-one had subject to the death penalty for some time as it was reduced to life imprisonment. However in the case of gay and lesbian people the position was clear. She said that legalisation of homosexuality would be against the constitution and popular opinion.
In 2017 she was serving on an investigation into "Maizegate". George Chaponda, Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water development had bought 100,000 tonnes of Zambian maize. President Peter Mutharika had set up an inquiry, and after that a High Court in Mzuzu ordered that George Chaponda should be suspended from being a minister. There were calls for her resignation after she reacted on Facebook. Her post implied that some government bodies were not fully aware of their role. She was accused of pre-judging the enquiry. She deleted the post and her Facebook account.
In 2018 President Peter Mutharika appointed Gertrude Hiwa as a new Solicitor General. She replaced Chikaya Banda who became the new Principal Secretary at the scandal ridden Minister of Lands.
In 2020 following over 70 deaths, she was the Deputy chief secretary to the government and she announced the measures in July to handle the COVID-19 pandemic. Civil servants were advised to stay at home as Capitol Hill was in lockdown. Offices would be disinfected and essential work would continue 27 July.
She led the Presidential Delivery Unit in May 2024 as the Deputy Secretary to the President and Cabinet. She noted the progress made on open government and the tasks still to go at a meeting led by Monica Chang'anamuno who was the Minister of Mining. This was the first time that Malawi had supported Open Government Week.