The ACB is fully capacitated with hundreds of human and billions of financial resources at its disposal—Chakwera

Chakwera and his champion in the fight against corruption

* The lack of progress on corruption cases is due to legal and political impediments that have beleaguered, Martha Chizuma

* The impediments that have disturbed her work need not to be seen as a hindrance to the work of the institution itself

* The Financial & Economic Crimes Court has been set up to expedite the successful prosecution of corruption cases

By Duncan Mlanjira

In his State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Lazarus Chakwera agreed with concerned stakeholders that the lack of progress on corruption cases is due to legal and political impediments that have beleaguered, Martha Chizuma, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director General in the last two months.

“I agree that it is likely that those impediments have disturbed her in her work, and it is a relief that the new Director of Public Prosecutions, whom I appointed and whom this House confirmed last month, has removed these impediments.

“However, it is also my view that the impediments that have disturbed her work need not to be seen as a hindrance to the work of the institution itself. It is no secret that under my Administration, the Bureau is a fully capacitated institution with hundreds of human and billions of financial resources at its disposal, as well as greater operational freedom since the removal of the consent clause from the Corrupt Practices Act.”

He further attested that the ACB “itself has proved this to be true, because despite the impediments the Bureau Chief has faced, the Bureau has continued to execute its mandate in other matters throughout the same year in which the Director General was variously impeded”.

“For example, in the past year, the ACB investigated 584 cases out of 914 complaints received, completed 270 investigations, recommended 67 cases for prosecution, conducted several procurement approvals, monitored five national programs, conducted six Anti-Corruption Clinics, coordinated a successful national anti- corruption conference, and led a 20-week anti- corruption campaign.

“So, Madam Speaker, since the Bureau has been productive as an institution in these other important matters it was handling during that same period, I believe that the lack of progress on the prosecution of cases by the entire institution over that period needs a more serious and sober analysis.

“For that reason, although only a fraction of the 48 corruption cases the Bureau has consent to prosecute have made progress, I do not presently blame anyone for the delay, because the factors that can delay the prosecution of any case are many.

“But what I would like to do instead is to respectfully appeal to the Judiciary to assist with the worrisome situation by setting dates for all the consented cases so that Malawians can see progress.

“I am appealing to the Judiciary because its performance in the management of other cases this past year has been impressive, with a total of 65,157 cases registered, over 40,000 of which were concluded, representing 62% completion rate, and Malawians deserve similar progress on corruption cases.”

Before commenting on the ACB, Chakwera said a priority area for public service delivery improvement is the administration of justice, and during the year under review, the justice system registered the following gains:

* Addressed the problem of insufficient judicial officers by appointing four new Justices to the Supreme Court of Appeal and 23 new High

Court Judges — bringing the total number of High Court Judges to 40, while the Supreme Court now has 11 Justices of Appeal, with the highest percentage of gender parity ever achieved in the history of the Malawi Judiciary;

* Amendment of the Courts Act, and under this amendment, a new Deputy Chief Justice for the Supreme Court and High Court of Malawi will soon be appointed;

* Construction of Likoma Magistrate Court and Balaka Magistrate Court has been completed, with support from European Union, under Chilungamo Programme while the rehabilitation of Rumphi and Dowa District Magistrates Courts will be completed in the first quarter of the new fiscal year.

Chakwera’s top priority was the establishment of a Financial & Economic Crimes Court and has since been set up following the enactment of the Courts Act — and the new Court has three judges, an assistant registrar, an administrator and support staff.

“The purpose of the Financial & Economic Crimes Court is to expedite the successful prosecution of corruption cases,” he said, while also announcing the establishment of the Asset Forfeiture Unit, “through which we have so far traced and preserved illicit assets worth over K1.4 billion — connected to 25 individuals who are answering cases of fraud and money laundering”.

“Through this Unit, we will be seeking the recovery of moneys stolen from Malawi and domiciled in other countries like the UK, the USA, the EU, the UAE, South Africa, and we count on our development partners to be as passionate about helping us recover our stolen wealth from their nations as they are about keeping their donated wealth from being stolen here in Malawi.

“Another way in which people try to defraud the Malawian people is by making exorbitant claims against the Government in court, but thanks to the tenacity of the Attorney General, we have challenged over 850 civil cases, thus saving over K260 billion in settlement claims.

“But justice is only possible where there are just laws, and so I must thank all the members of this House for doing their part in passing 45 bills that my Administration presented to this House, including the Seed Bill 2022; the Fertilizer Bill 2022; the Penal Code (Amendment) Bill 2022; and the Courts (Amendment) Bill, 2022.

“I am therefore hopeful that this kind of legislative progress will continue in this sitting, as there are a number of important bills coming your way, including a new and modernized bill for better regulation of the tobacco industry.”

He further said to reduce acts of fraud and monopoly in public procurement, the government “developed and gazetted various pieces of subsidiary legislation, including the Beneficial Ownership Regulations under the Companies Act, which will identify the beneficial owners of companies participating in public bids”.

“We have also scaled up the operations of the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) in the fight against public fraud and money laundering, resulting in the investigation of 234 money laundering incidents and prosecution of 58 of them, representing a staggering increase of 1040%.”

He also reported other developments under the justice sector that relate to electoral justice, saying the “key achievements include the successful re-demarcation of constituency boundaries, the passage of legislative reforms three months ago, and the commencement of the Electoral Commission’s planned relocation of its Headquarters from Blantyre to Lilongwe”.

“Additionally, to avoid the risk of disenfranchising citizens from enjoying their right to vote, the Electoral Commission is working with the National Registration Bureau to remove the restriction of an expiry date on National ID cards, which will also save Government the billions that would be needed to renew the cards that have already expired over the past two years.”

On the progress made on governance reforms, Chakwera said: “In many regions of the world, including ours, citizens want change beyond democratic elections. They demand inclusive, responsive and accountable government and above all, they demand to see their taxes delivering services that benefit them, not the few who hold public office.

“As such, I can say with certainty that any efforts we make to transform our economy must deliberately be translated into better public services for Malawians, because making public services more empowering, more organized, and more efficient is the best way to turn our economic gains into a better life for all our citizens.

“But if we are going to succeed, then I must say two painful truths that are difficult to say and that may be difficult to hear. First, this ambitious agenda of improving public service delivery has for decades been impeded by multiple systemic, historical, and cultural obstacles — obstacles we ourselves have created as a people, obstacles we ourselves must confront and remove.”

He highlighted the obstacles include dysfunctional public procurement processes; unchecked wastage of public resources on inconsequential activities; corruption and theft across all branches of government, including parastatals, parliament, police, and the military.

Also redundant payment systems; an overstretched and inconsistent justice system; political sabotage by political agents camouflaged as public servants; rent-seeking behaviour by some public officials; an insatiable appetite for cash handouts from Government officials by members of society and community leaders.

As well as tolerance of exploitative contractors on public projects; and needless and endless inter-agency rivalries driven by toxic egos. The obstacles also include lack of coordination between government ministries, departments and agencies; lack of monitoring and enforcement of standards and targets for Government projects and programmes by controlling officers and Directors.

And lack of basic and consistent standards of decency, order, and speed of service in public places like hospitals, stadia, markets, road traffic offices, police stations, immigration offices, border posts, and bus depots; lack of regulation or enforcement of established rules and consequences across entire sectors, including in the standards of constructing roads and other infrastructure projects.

They also include the compliance of media practitioners with the ethics of their profession and the terms of their licenses, the conduct of foreign diplomats and foreign-funded NGOs, the treatment of workers and their rights in the home and in the office, the protection of artists’ copyrights, the protection of our nation’s mineral riches from theft by crooks from the West and crooks from the East, and the protection of our natural environment.

“This broken sewer of chaos cannot be left uncorrected, Madam Speaker. The second painful truth I must say is that we cannot fix all broken public services at once. We don’t have the resources to do that.

“That means that in each portfolio of public service, we must prioritize some services over others. The mistake of treating every public service as a priority has caused us to spread our limited resources so thinly and so widely that they do not actually change anything.

“So for each portfolio of public service, we must know what activities are a priority.