Whistleblower Kamangila at the centre of it all
* Emphasises that the whistleblowing should be based on goodwill and not due to ill motives
* Every member of the society should be a watchdog on each other by reporting to authorities
* Through the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Malawi Police Service and other law enforcement authorities they suspect something which is of corruption in nature
By Duncan Mlanjira
If the fight against corruption is to be achieved, All-African Conference of Churches (AACC) Economic Justice & Accountability Champion & Ambassador in Malawi, Rev. Baxton Maulidi believes members of the public should be encouraging on corruption whistleblowing and should be protected.
However, Rev. Maulidi emphasises that the whistleblowing should be based on goodwill and not due to ill motives.
He is making the observation following the ongoing furore caused by private practice lawyer, Alexious Kamangila, who came into the public domain to accuse High Court Judge Kenan Manda and other Judiciary judges and officers of alleged corruption.
As Economic Justice & Accountability Ambassador of the AACC in Malawi, Rev. Maulidi applauds responses from Malawi Law Society (MLS), the coalition of civil societies (CSOs), the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament and the members of the public for imploring on the Judicial Service Commission to investigate the alleged corruption accusations.
Rev. Maulidi
“If the fight against corruption is to be achieved, every member of the society should be a watchdog on each other by reporting to authorities — through the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Malawi Police Service and other law enforcement authorities — when they suspect something which is of corruption in nature,” Rev. Maulidi said in an interview.
“The calls for investigation into Mr. Kamangila’s allegations from Malawi Law Society and the CSOs, including his stance in challenging that he is ready to be sued for coming out in the open, indicate that Kamangila might have some strong evidence.
“What Malawi Law Society and the CSOs have done in responding to Kamangila’s allegations should give Malawians more confidence that once they report on cases of corruption, they would be protected against any reprisals.
“Malawians should be encouraged that their identity would be protected as whistleblowers and the authorities should be asked to offer some monetary incentives as a reward for whistleblowers.”
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Meanwhile, when Kamangila was accusing Justice Manda, he was slapped with a lawsuit of K250 million as compensation, which the public deemed as trying to gag him from further exposure.
Further to that, an open letter statement by anonymous individuals calling themselves ‘concerned citizens’ — addressed to the Chief Justice Rezine Mzikamanda that has circulated on social media — is demanding that Mzikamanda’s office should compel Kamangila to lodge a formal complaint against the judges and the lawyers he is alleging to be involved in corruption.
The petition says this should be done within 3 days from the date of its issue (October 20, 2024), and “the complaint should be accompanied by evidence of corruption capable of proving his allegations beyond reasonable doubt”.
This is also being viewed as attempts trying to gag Kamangila and according to Rev. Maulidi, such “threats are some of the fears that prevents whistleblowers to name and shame corruption practices”.
In July, in a panel discussion during the World Council of Churches Mission & Evangelism (CWME) meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, Rev. Maulidi persuaded AACC members to purposefully and intensively preach against corruption in their church sermons.
Held at Desmond Tutu Conference Centre, the AACC anti-corruption ambassador in Malawi emphasised that the clergy are “supposed to stand tall and preach against the vice of corruption in churches”.
“As faith leaders, we need to join the fight against corruption,” he had said. “We have a mandate to drive people in the right and proper direction because we have different stakeholders of the society in our churches, including politicians and policy makers.
“We need to take the leading role to advocate against this vice which is looting African nations. Corruption is making African people to be poorer and poorer yet churches are there preaching to the very same people who are involved in decision making of our nations’ economy.”
On its website, the AACC quoted an emphasis from Rev. Maulidi that says: “Each one of us must exercise moral integrity in order to fight corruption and promote transparency and accountability in our area of influence.”
The panel discussion
When he returned from Nairobi, Rev. Maulidi expounded in an interview with Maravi Express that if one is a traditional leader, they have their area of influence — and so too with others that include teachers, school head boys/girls, farmers, parents, politicians as well as the clergy.
“So, in that area of influence you have to promote transparency and accountability to fight against corruption,” he said, adding that the conference in Nairobi emphasised on the need to raise more awareness of the “evil and damage that the vice is causing in Africa”.
Thus Rev. Maulidi adding credence to Kamangila’s strong stance despite threats he is allegedly receiving that include being sued for hundreds of millions of kwachas, to which he challenged; “please sue”.
“We need to encourage whistleblowing to stop people from indulging in the vice,” emphasises Rev. Maulidi, while stressing that they should be based on goodwill — not from ill motives.
In the interview with Maravi Express in July — when asked if Malawi is moving in the right direction — Rev. Maulidi said: “I would not say we are doing enough — we are trying but we need to do more. We need our Anti-Corruption Bureau to have more support and to ensure its independence.
“The support for the ACB should come in form of good funding from the national budget and its independence should be being detached from the national executive for it to work without any compromise.”
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