Blues\u2019 Orators, with one week to go before this year says adieu, I have a request. Before you begin considering my request, kindly allow me to explain the circumstances.
\nIn April 2017, President Arthur Peter Mutharika and his buddies convened a National Conference on Corruption.
\nHighly distinguished Speakers from near and far were invited. These speakers did not disappoint. They approached the conference with the gravity it deserved.
\nThe Speaker of Malawi Parliament for instance, wishfully thinking that the government was for once serious about fighting corruption; bravely read the riot act to Mutharika.
\n\u201cCorruption is about people and their mind-set. Appropriate laws and effective policies will definitely help, but unless our collective mind-set transforms significantly, our fight against corruption will be akin to chasing the wind.\u201d
\nNo one has ever been this blunt to Mutharika right in his face. Some choose their words carefully while others only crown him as the \u2018Prince of Thieves\u2019 in his absence. But not Richard Msowoya.
\n\u201cOn several occasions,\u201d Msowoya continued, \u201cI have laboured with this question: Is our fight against corruption premised on a concrete conviction that this is a vice we must deal with or it is simply a make-believe exercise to appear progressive within the international community and, therefore, be able to access donor aid and foreign investment which we can also subject to more corrupt practices?\u201d
\nDriving the point home, he said:
\n\u201cI am asking this question because I get the sense that there is no profound acknowledgement of the existence of this evil among us. For example, I get worried when we start rationalising allegations of corruption, by suggesting that we need to distinguish perceptions from the reality. I fully understand that it is unfair and frustrating to be perceived as corrupt when you are not, but we must accept that there can never be perceptions of corruption where there is no corruption.\u201d
\nHe then schooled Mutharika on what to do:
\n\u201cThe best way to deal with perceptions of corruption, therefore, is by resolutely facing corruption head on,\u201d pleading with Mutharika and his cohorts to \u2018repent\u2019 their futile and pathetic attempts at splitting hairs by proposing an imaginary dichotomy between theft and corruption.
\n\u201cFor me, theft and corruption have the same grounding \u2013 a lack of respect for systems, a lack of respect for what is not yours. You cannot be corrupt without having the mentality of a thief and the two have to be fought together!\u201d <\/p>\n
preached Msowoya.
\nHe then proposed several practical steps e.g. overhauling the legal framework for the fight against corruption; liberating the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) from the clutches of the political elite; and ending the practice of dubious public appointments based on appointees\u2019 proximity, be it political or tribal, to Mutharika and his henchmen.
\n\u201cWe can also not do away with perceptions of corruption if, as it so often happens, the National Assembly makes recommendations or passes motions aimed at enhancing the fight against corruption and the Executive does nothing about them.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not long ago that we had a Private Member Motion in Parliament aimed at freeing the ACB from external pressure and influence \u2013 but this was, unfortunately in my view, defeated. The questions that linger in people\u2019s minds are: What are we afraid of? How does an independent ACB threaten anyone?\u201d
\nEight months on, no single recommendation from the April Conference has been implemented. Not even a report – the logical conclusion of any conference, has been produced. Zamanyazi ndithu. A national disgrace!
\nThis has prompted the European Union (EU) Ambassador to Malawi, Marchel Gerrmann, to demand – as a matter of \u201chigh priority\u201d – the release of the April 2017 high-level National Anti- Corruption Conference report.
\n\u201cWe are still awaiting the official report of this conference [National Anti-Corruption Conference], including recommendations for action. We call on the government to follow up as a matter of high priority,\u201d Gerrmann said in a speech during an event focusing on performance evaluation results of ministries and departments.
\nIn an interview later, Germann said the report is critical as it will drive stakeholders\u2019 endeavours to implement the recommendations from the April conference.
\nThe envoy\u2019s demand follows rampant reports that the Peter Mutharika administration is, from head to toe, mired in corruption.
\n\u2022 Fact: The National Audit Office report for June 30 2016 has revealed systemic and systematic failures by controlling officers in implementing and enforcing the public financial management act.
\n\u2022 Sickening Fact: The report reveals that K1 billion couldn\u2019t be accounted for at the Ministry of Health, after being paid to ghosts.
\n\u2022 Sad Fact: It further says other payments were made using rates that were not approved.
\n\u2022 Big Fact: About K265 million was paid out in allowances to officers who aren\u2019t bona fide civil servants and K399 million was paid out to people that cannot be traced whereas K61 million was paid out to non-deserving staff.
\n\u2022 Stinking Facts: Then there is Chaponda\u2019s Zambian maize procurement scandal and the Chief Secretary\u2019s K64 million office furniture imbroglio and many other scandals rocking the Mutharika administration.
\nNot surprisingly, the Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development, Goodall Gondwe, had no immediate response to the envoy\u2019s request.
\nMy humble request therefore is that you and I should observe a minute of silence, not for the many people perishing due to lack of basic drugs and equipment in our hospitals while our hard-paid taxes are getting mercilessly looted; nope.
\nFor this, a minute wouldn\u2019t suffice, we would need hours if not days of silence.
\nRather, I want us to observe a minute of silence in embarrassment on behalf of President Mutharika and his cabinet who are incapable of feeling embarrassed for their brazen debauchery.
\nIt\u2019s a pity that the April 2017 anti-corruption conference was, as many had feared, yet another episode of executive tomfoolery when it is a fact that with corruption, our motherland sinks deeper into abject poverty and the poor suffer even more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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