PUTTING THE LID ON CORRUPTION, BAD GOVERNANCE 

By Joseph Kayira | 4 January 2024

Corruption is evil, yet it is generally accepted as a way of getting things done – especially in the civil service. Corruption is the reason the economy has remained stagnant for close to 60 years now. It is also the reason poverty has permeated through society’s stratum, leaving millions prone to de-humanising effects of poverty.

It is important to acknowledge that corruption is a serious problem in Malawi; and that it goes beyond the civil service. Corruption has quickly spread to other sectors of the economy, including the private sector. Stories are bound of politicians and businessmen who connive with public officers to defraud government. Past and present cases reveal how civil servants, politicians and businesspersons have seized by dishonest or fraudulent conduct, government resources and diverted them into their personal bank accounts.

Chizuma: Heads the ACB (Photo Credit: Internet)

The Cashgate scandal shows how those trusted with power at any level in government can abuse that power to enrich themselves. People systematically agreed to steal huge sums of money from government and it involved both senior people and clerks in the public service. They deliberately paid for goods and services that were never supplied or delivered at all. It was pure theft of hard-earned resources meant for development and other state obligations. 

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and other government agencies descended on them. Scores were arrested; some were convicted and served jail terms while others were made to pay back to government the money they stole. Others are still answering alleged charges – ranging from abuse of office to theft and so on and so forth. One key official involved in the Cashgate Scandal disappeared a few months ago. No one knows where he is; like mist, he just melted into the night. End of story.

What is more worrisome is how those in authority do not want to walk the talk on the fight against corruption. That is why the Catholic bishops in one of their statements – ‘A call for relentless fight against corruption’ – observed that “sadly, even many of those tasked to fight and eliminate corruption are too often sucked into it. But occasionally, there are people who risk everything by standing up to corruption.”

“No one should be pressurized, intimidated or influenced by threats or any other means in the carrying out of their work for the good of the country. We plead, in the interest of building a more just and transparent Malawi that benefits all its citizens, that any of the investigations or cases which the ACB is dealing with are not in any way obstructed or influenced.

“Let no suspect, however powerful, wealthy or who their connection are, be shielded or protected provided that he or she is given proper recourse to the legal processes of the courts. Let State institutions which were ultimately established for the good of all Malawians and those entrusted to carry out their objectives for the good of all not become themselves agents of darkness by failing to defend and promote the common good,” the bishops said in their statement.

Martha Chizuma, the (ACB) director general has been forthcoming in taking down the corrupt. She pinned down some powerful people here and beyond. They felt threatened; they ganged up against her. In the wee hours of Tuesday, December 5, 2022 police arrested her in her pajamas and drove her to Namitete Police Station, outside the City of Lilongwe.

In Parliament, Cabinet Ministers denied any knowledge of Chizuma’s arrest. In short, people who should have known about her arrest in advance and try to avoid it, to avoid the embarrassment that government suffered, said that arrest came as a surprise to them. The donors did not like the smell of it; opposition parties, civil society and churches condemned the arrest and demanded answers. It led to the firing of the director of public prosecutions.

President Lazarus Chakwera has spoken highly about Chizuma, saying, “I appointed her because I considered her to be a person of great integrity, the kind of integrity needed to resist every inducement that would be thrown her way to compromise her. I appointed her because I considered her to be a person of great strength, that kind of strength needed to keep fighting for justice even when it looks hopeless and dark.”

Such praise should begin to culminate into action. Yes, politically these statements make sense. They show donors and development partners that as a nation, Malawi is doing something on corruption. What is baffling though is the fact that on the ground, the situation is totally different. The ACB director needs the cooperation of everyone. She is pulling in one side, the powerful and the corrupt are doing exactly the opposite. Progress means pulling together as a team.

Professor Lumumba: Politicians have not helped 

matters (Photo Credit: Internet)

In 2024, this fight ought to take a new direction to achieve maximum results. There is need for unity of purpose in all the concerned ministries, departments and agencies to root out corruption. The past two years have been lost to fights within and among people who should be joining hands and forces to face the corrupt. A disjointed army that lacks discipline can hardly win this battle. In fact, the corrupt are too happy to divide and rule, and get away with impunity. In all this it is the poor, those who are at the bottom of the social class, that suffer most.

Kenyan Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba says politicians have not helped matters to decisively deal with corruption. Not many across the continent, he says have the zeal to fight corruption. They are actually so much into into it.  

“Politicians, not one of them – if there is one, I am struggling to remember – who actually want corruption to be fought and when you go out to fight corruption, they will try to create things against you. And I have seen it across the continent of Africa; I saw it with Nuhu Ribadu in Nigeria, I saw it with [Leonard] McCathy in South Africa – [where] they disbanded the organisation [that was mandated to fight corruption]. 

“I have seen it recently in Malawi, with the lady who is in-charge of the anti-corruption, Martha. They try to get things that you, yourself can be charged and arrested for corruption. They can amend laws to abolish your office; they amended laws here in Kenya when on the occasion of the change of the constitution, they amended laws to abolish the offices that we occupied. And I remember, I am writing my book and it shall come out. Those who sat at a room in Kisumu said ‘he must be removed’. If he is not removed all of us are going to be in jail. You go and read the Hansard at midnight on the day that they were changing the law to abolish our offices,” Lumumba says.

Whatever the case, corruption is a serious issue here. If we are to stop the cancer that is corruption, let’s call a spade by its name. Those who steal and plunder public resources are thieves. And there shouldn’t be sacred cows nor should there be selective justice when prosecuting agencies get down to business. It is how our friends elsewhere have successfully managed to deal with this evil.

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