Ombudsman steps up fight against abuse of power

OFFICE of the Ombudsman has said it will intensify its fight against such vices as abuse of power, unfair conduct and other instances of maladministration.

The office believes that increasing the citizenry’s general awareness of these issues and the office’s functions, will help in achieving that goal. Ombudsman, Martha Chizuma-Mwangonde, made the remarks in Lilongwe on Friday during the launch of the institution’s five-year communication strategy.

“As a government office, we work with so many constraints, but despite that, we are making progress. I am confident and hopeful that the launch of the document today, coupled with its effective and consistent implementation, the awareness levels of the office will significantly improve.

“The general public will fully utilize the office and incidents of abuse of power, oppressive or unfair conduct and other instances of maladministration will begin to minimize,” Mwangonde said.

Mwangonde emphasized on why her office is now focusing on the fight against maladministration. “Each and every citizen of Malawi can be a victim of maladministration and thus it is now a very wide [audience] that we are targeting. This communication strategy contains the ways and means of reaching out to this larger pool of audience,” she said.

The strategy’s objectives are to ensure knowledge and understanding of the office of the Ombudsman’s mandate and jurisdiction and empower members of the general public to identify poor service delivery by government’s ministries departments and agencies.

The communication strategy also aims to establish relationships and engagement avenues between the institution and its stakeholders, as well as to get a buy-in of all stakeholders at various levels to support the Office of the Ombudsman in capacity building and resource mobilization.

Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Technology, Justin Saidi, said the Ministry will support the office in the implementation of the strategy.

“As a Ministry responsible for communications, we are very pleased. All we can do is to support them in disseminating the information. We have Malawi News Agency and even Malawi Broadcasting Corporation. These are the outlets the Office of the Ombudsman can use to reach out to,” Saidi said.