* This comes a week after Rev. Maulidi championed that if the fight against corruption is to be achieved in Malawi, members of the public should be encouraging on corruption whistleblowing — and should be protected
* The theme was mooted out as the AU Board has dedicated its work in 2024 to promote the role of whistleblowing in combating corruption
By Duncan Mlanjira
The African Union (AU) Advisory Board against Corruption has invited All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) Economic Justice Accountability Champion in Malawi, Rev. Maulidi to its 8th annual African anti-corruption dialogue — whose theme is; ‘Effective Whistleblowers Protection Mechanism: A Critical Tool in the Fight against Corruption’.
This comes a week after Rev. Maulidi championed that if the fight against corruption is to be achieved in Malawi, members of the public should be encouraging on corruption whistleblowing — and should be protected.
The two-day conference will be held in Arusha in the United Republic of Tanzania on November 7-8, 2024, and the AU Advisory Board against Corruption says the theme was mooted out as the AU Board “has dedicated its work in 2024 to promote the role of whistleblowing in combating corruption”.
According to the invitation letter from AU Advisory Board against Corruption’s Executive Secretary, Charity Hanene Nchimunya, the event will be held under its specific objectives, that include:
a) To take stock of whistleblower protection in Africa;
b) To identify best practices in whistleblower protection that are contributing to the fight against corruption in Africa;
c) To provide recommendations to State Parties on effective whistleblower mechanisms to improve whistleblower protection; and
d) To engage and forge deeper relationships with AU Advisory Board against Corruption, the RECs, national anti-corruption authorities, civil society organisations and other key national actors.
Rev. Baxton Maulidi
Rev. Maulidi, who is also Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) Blantyre Synod’s Deputy General Secretary, said he was humbled to be recognised and honoured by such an esteemed African Union to attend such a conference.
“As you are aware, I’ve attended several of AACC conferences centres on the fight against corruption, most recent being in July during the World Council of Churches Mission & Evangelism (CWME) meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.
“The AACC members are being encouraged to purposefully and intensively preach against corruption in their church sermons, thus the Advisory Board against Corruption has decided to engage the faith community as we need to take the leading role to advocate against this vice which is looting African nations.”
Rev. Maulidi made a presentation during panel discussion of the World Council of Churches Mission & Evangelism meeting in Nairobi in July, emphasising 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.
“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.”
In his comment last week, Rev. Maulidi stressed that the whistleblowing should be based on goodwill and not due to ill motives.
He said this 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.
Justice Kenan Manda
As Economic Justice & Accountability champion, Rev. Maulidi applauded 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.
“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.
“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.
Alexious Kamangila
“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.”
Meanwhile, when Kamangila was accusing Justice Manda, he was slapped with a lawsuit of K250,000 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 circulated on social media — was 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 was also 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”.
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