ACB registered and processed total of 36,878 cases in past two decades

* 10,615 were recommended for investigation whereas 26,210 were either closed or referred to other relevant institutions

* As it celebrates 25 years of existence with a call for concerted effort against corruption

By Stanley Nkhondoyachepa, MANA

In the past two decades, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has registered and processed a total of 36,878 cases of which 10,615 were recommended for investigation whereas 26,210 were either closed or referred to other relevant institutions.

Thus was disclosed by ACB Director General, Martha Chizuma in Lilongwe on Wednesday during a media briefing celebrating 25 years of the bureau’s operations since its opening to the public in 1998.

Chizuma further said a total of 5,314 cases were completed between 2004/2005 and 2022/2023 of which 1,308 were recommended for prosecution, adding that 425 corruption cases were successfully prosecuted and completed in various courts across Malawi between 2004/2005 and 2022/2023 period.

Of the cases, Chizuma said 158 represented 37% as convictions and 94 cases representing 22% were acquittals, adding that the Bureau has also made tremendous strides in various aspects since its opening, which include increasing the staffing levels and strengthening monitoring and evaluation.

She, however, bemoaned the poor rating on anti-corruption fight as reflected by the transparency international corruption perception index (CPI), emphasising the need for concerted efforts in the fight against corruption.

Thus she called upon Malawians to personalise the fight against corruption in order to win the war against the vice, saying: “Since 1998, the fight against corruption has yielded mixed results over the years as shown on the indices produced by Transparency International based on a scale from 0-100 where a score of 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean.

“As a country, Malawi has never realised a score of 50 on the index, the highest ever being attained being 41 points achieved during the early years of ACB establishment, whereas the lowest being ever attained was 27 points in 2007.”

On corruption prevention and public awareness, Chizuma said ACB seeks to formulate and implement programs aimed at raising awareness on the evil effects of corruption and soliciting public support in the fight against corruption.

Thus she called on Malawians to personalise the fight against corruption if the vice is to be rooted out, observing it retards development.

“People should know that whenever there is corruption, it affects them in one way or another because whatever money is stolen is their money contributed through taxes and is meant to come back to them through services.”

Ccurrently, she said, the Bureau is handling cases involving Zuneth Sattar, Vice-President Saulos Chilima, former bodyguard to former State Pesident Peter Mutharika, Norman Chisale, among others.

As part of the commemoration, the ACB will undertake awareness activities that will provide a platform for disseminating anti-corruption messages and also allow the country to reflect on the past 25 years of the anticorruption fight and how it can reposition itself for greater impact.

Earlier this month, the ACB signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Football Association of Malawi (FAM), which was applauded as a landmark agreement aimed at supporting the fight against corruption in the country.

Through the MoU, signed at Mpira Village at Chiwembe in Blantyre, FAM and ACB will focus their efforts on the following areas:

* Anti-corruption awareness;

* Capacity building for football officials, players, and stakeholders;

* Developing corruption reporting tools;

* Consultations on certain areas of mutual interest that may emerge from time to time;

* Conducting periodic system reviews and risk assessments to identify corruption loopholes;

* Developing and implementing anti-corruption strategies, policies, and systems and any other strategy deemed necessary and appropriate by the Parties;

* Investigate and prosecute corruption related issues in football; and

* Joint resource mobilization initiatives for the aforementioned activities.

Chizuma was quoted by Fam.mw as saying: “For all of us in the ACB family, today is a good day because it is a day we hold hands with one of the powerful and popular institutions in the country in the fight against corruption.

“We are truly grateful to FAM for the various platforms and products that have been offered through this agreement for the execution of our mandate especially that of  prevention of corruption and public education.

“The Bureau commits to exploit this opportunity for the benefit of all Malawians and specifically football loving Malawians. This collaboration is founded on mutual benefit of the strategic goals for both our institutions.

“As the Bureau helps build the anti-corruption capacity of football stakeholders for the good of football development and set up corruption resistant structures in football, it will also benefit from this relationship because soccer has that natural attraction for people, it pulls crowds of people which will enable us easily to disseminate anti-corruption messages,” she is quoted as saying.

On his FAM president Walter Nyamilandu Manda said FAM feels obliged to offer its massive football platforms in fight against corruption which is a biggest threat derailing the growth of Malawi as a country.

“The signing of this MOU is a milestone for FAM and underlines the absolute commitment of FAM and me as President to put football at the service of society and to use it as a tool to support the achievement of public policy objectives.

“We are proud to have a partner like ACB as we strive to use the unique power of the beautiful game as  a vehicle to drive the agenda of  corruption prevention in the country.

“We commit to use the game’s popularity and massive footprint across the country as a vehicle for ACB to use in the fight against corruption,” he said.

Apart from football offering its products and services in the fight against corruption, FAM also intends to use the partnership to fight corruption in football.

“We are not immune from fraud,” Nyamilandu is quoted as saying by Fam.mw. “There are a lot of corrupt activities that are derailing the growth of the game among them, Match fixing and manipulations .

“These practices undermine the credibility and integrity of football and results are detrimental resulting in among others the withdrawal of sponsors.

“As FAM, we have over the few years taken significant strides in relation to good governance and in the area of football integrity, including the fight against match manipulation and corruption in general.

“We have included in our statutes, rules and regulations clauses to deal with corruption. We have set up compliance and audit committee and a number of independent bodies in strengthening the governance systems of the Association and corrupt practices in check.

“But that is not enough to clean our game because we don’t have the expertise to deal with Corruption and this why we want the Bureau to compliment that aspect,” said.—Additional reporting by Maravi Express