Malawi Institute of Chartered Accountants invites African great orator Prof. Lumumba again for Executive Retreat conference

By Duncan Mlanjira

Institute of Chartered Accountants of Malawi (ICAM) has once again invited Africa’s great orator Prof. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba from Kenya, this time for the annual Executive Retreat to be held at Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe on February 22.

ICAM Chief Executive Officer Francis Chinjoka Gondwe said Lumumba has already confirmed his availability and as well as the four other speakers lined up — Reserve Bank Governor Dalitso Kabambe, High Court Judge Fiona Mwale, Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director General Reyneck Matemba and Chancellor College’s Blessings Chinsinga.

The theme for this year’s Executive Retreat is ‘Governance Under the Microscope: ‘Moving Forward with One Vision’ and Gondwe said this topic was decided because institutions are failing in Malawi mainly due to poor or weak governance. 

“Hence, governance has come under scrutiny — what is the problem and how can we deal with the challenges,” Gondwe said.

Lumumba will speak on the topic ‘Africa’s governance dilemna: where do we go wrong?’; Kabambe on ‘Economic governance for economic growth: going beyond rhetoric while Chinsinga will tackle ‘Political and economic governance interface’.

Matemba’s topic is ‘The spreading cancer of corruption: is governance failing to tame it?’ while Justice Mwale’s is ‘Governance under the legal microscope: strengths and weaknesses’.

Lumumba was also invited as guest speaker at the 2019 ICAM annual conference at Sun ‘n’ Sand Holiday Resort, which was held under the theme ‘Repositioning Africa’s Economic Renaissance – Malawi in the Equation’.

He had said the founding fathers of the post colonial Africa; the pan Africanists, had a dream for the continent and was very relevant to the the theme.

“They envisioned a continent that was united, prosperous, highly developed and peaceful, one that was ahead if not an equal partaker in world business with the rest of the world, a continent with capacity to give aid to other continents.

“Yet, 50 plus years down the line, Africa still wallows social, economic and political instabilities. It still relies heavily on donations from other continents.

“The dreams of Pan-Africanists are yet to be realised. However, Africa boasts of increased professionals in different sectors since independence,” he had said.

Just recently, Justice Mwale was amongst high profile judicial officers and other stakeholders at a meeting that took place at the Thailand Institute of Justice in Bangkok, organized by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) that reviewed and revised a toolkit that provides gender responsive alternatives to imprisoning mothers who serve prison sentences with their young children.

Justice Mwale had said these handbooks use practical examples to guide judicial officers, prosecutors, defence lawyers, paralegals and other criminal justice stakeholders such as probation officers, civil society organizations with guidance on what to do in cases where women are accused of crimes and it provides alternatives for imprisonment.