By Duncan Mlanjira
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Malawi Chapter says it is concerned that the government is not following through with commitment it made on following laid down procedures in hiring public officers.
A press release from MISA Malawi chairperson, Teresa Temweka Ndanga cites the appointment of Chikumbutso Mtumodzi as the new Director of Information (DOI), yet the vacancy was never advertised nor was there a competitive recruitment process.
Chikumbutso Mtumodzi
She said the Minister of Information, Gospel Kazako is on record to have said the new administration was committed to ensuring that recruitment procedures were being followed.
She quotes Kazako as saying there are some Malawians whose appointments in government positions were not procedurally followed and there is need to correct that.
“There are a lot of people in government today who are not qualified for the positions they hold while some did not even attend any interviews. They were just being picked from their homes to Capital Hill,” Kazako had told The Daily Times immediately after termination of contracts for the then DOI and his deputy Mzati Nkolokosa and Deogratias Mmana respectively.
Ndanga, MISA Malawi chairperson
Ndanga said: “[The Minister] told the paper that it was important to ensure that laws were being followed when employing people into the public service, saying political colours should never be a qualification for anyone to get a job in government.
“We, therefore, find the hiring of new public officers without following the due process unfortunate and a betrayal to Malawians.
“MISA Malawi fears the trend may creep into other media bodies such as the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA), which have been equally abused in the past.
Kazako
“Ministry of Information, MBC and MACRA are statutory institutions with well laid down recruitment procedures and government must let those procedures guide recruitment processes.
“Freedom of expression and media freedom thrive where public bodies responsible for the media are free from any form of political interference including recruitment of officers.
“We would like to urge the government to stick to the law in recruiting officers,” Ndanga said.
Godfrey Itaye
This is also almost the same concern that the European Investment Bank (EIB) raised some two weeks ago when it attached serious conditions in order to approve Malawi’s request made in May 2020 to increase financing of the construction of Lilongwe’s treatment works (TWIII) following corruption allegations involving Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) Chief Executive Officer, Godfrey Itaye.
By the time the Malawi government was applying for the increase on the loan, BWB had a CEO in place but following some fraud and corruption investigations at the water utility company — that even the EIB was involved in through its Fraud and Investigations Division — that CEO was removed.
The government had assured EIB through a letter on April, 9, 2020 that the new BWB CEO would be competitively recruited and that the EIB and the World Bank would be updated once the recruitment process is complete.
But the EIB says it did not receive such an update and “consequently it is difficult to determine if a competitive recruitment process was undertaken” and “it was with much disappointment when we learnt of reports in the media that the newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of Lilongwe Water Board [Itaye] has been arrested and may be facing criminal charges”.
Itaye’s alleged fraud and corruption allegations were allegedly done whilst he was director general for Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) but he was transferred to become LWB CEO, where his arrest was executed.
Meanwhile, Itaye and Head of Production & Distribution, Sinosi Maliano are still executing his duties. Maliano was involved in the procurement of prepaid water meters three years ago that led to an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) that was supported by the EIB’s Fraud and Investigations Division.
LWB water supply plants
As a requirement of its lending, EIB reminds the government that while Itaye faces charges he would be required to have no involvement what so ever in this project to be financed by the EIB.
On Tuesday, Itaye acted as CEO when LWB had a meeting with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Joint Coordinating Committee, which is supporting the water utility company in reducing losses.
Under the project dubbed ‘Project for Strengthening the Capacity of Non-Revenue Water Reduction for Lilongwe Water Board’, Itaye said that the board appreciates the expertise which Japan through JICA provides to support LWB.
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“Japan is one of the advanced countries and in terms of managing non-revenue water they are way ahead, so their expertise is quite important to LWB and we appreciate their commitment in supporting us in dealing with issues of non-revenue water,” Itaye said.
He added that, currently LWB is losing 40% of its purified water due to illegal water connections, high pipe leakage rate because of high percentage of old distribution pipes and inaccurate water meters.
“Last year we lost about K22 billion due to non-revenue water, for this reason with support from JICA we are devoted to deal with issues of non-revenue water in order to reduce commercial losses,” he said.
In his remarks, JICA’ country representative, Naoto Sakonju advised LWB to keep on working together with water utilities from other countries including Rwanda and Kenya in order to share experiences and learn from each other in non-revenue water reduction.—Additional reporting by Moses Nyirenda, MANA
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