Malawi Leadership and Corruption: Clueless, Ego or Clueless Ego

Table of Contents
Malawi Leadership and Corruption: Clueless, Ego or Clueless Ego ..................................................... 1
I refuse to accept that our leadership’s failure to fight corruption is due to State Capture ............ 2
I refuse to accept that our political and institutional leadership has provided leadership required
for the fight against corruption.............................................................................................................. 2
Poor fight against corruption, fraud and embezzlement can only be due to the Leadership Being
Clueless, Ego or Clueless Ego; because: ................................................................................................ 3
The leadership is aware of the corruption, fraud problem; has shown that it knows what needs to be
done including improving public service delivery; and has consistently promised to deal with the
scourge .................................................................................................................................................. 3
The leadership has a wealth of guidance material resource both at the strategic and implementation
levels ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
The leadership has been offered mountains of informal and formal advice since inauguration of the
Presidency which has gone to waste .................................................................................................... 4
The leadership should draw on institutional memory; and experiences in the region ......................... 4
I hope the submission of the ACB report on 21 or 22 June 2022 will elicit better strategic actions 5

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I refuse to accept that our leadership’s failure to fight corruption is due to State
Capture

I share the notion that some elements in our leadership, especially in the political leadership and
accountability institutions, are under state capture or compromised but I also believe these
elements are a small minority of our political, strategic and or technical leadership of the
accountability institutions in: Presidency, Chakwera, Chikhosi, Janet Banda; Ministry of Justice,
Mvalo, Matemba, Thabo Nyirenda, Kayuni; Anti-Corruption Bureau, Chizuma; Financial
intelligence Authority, Priminta; Auditor General, Makiwa; Malawi Police Service, Kainja,
Malawi Revenue Authority, Bizwick; Reserve Bank of Malawi, Banda, Kabango; or Public
Procurement and Disposal of Asset Authority, Banda, Hausi, Mlewa, Chilapondwa.
I also believe that these leaders have the qualifications and mandatory competencies for the
positions they hold, but that each has some and not all the requisite technical core competencies
for dealing with fraud, corruption and embezzlement. The fight against corruption requires
aggregated technical competencies that are not reposed in any single person or institution namded.
I therefore, share the understanding that the fight against corruption is not a fight for a single
institution but requires collaborative and coordinated planning and implementation at all three
levels: policy, strategy and execution.

I refuse to accept that our political and institutional leadership has provided
leadership required for the fight against corruption

Instead there has been concerted scapegoating, shifting of blame and shirking of responsibility.
This has been so since Auditor General Kamphasa released the 2011-2012 Audit Report in
December 2014 showing that a loss of K122 billion was to be investigated (commonly reported as
K92 billion) which was soon to be corroborated in May 2015 by the Auditor General’s Price Water
House Coopers supported GOM-Cashbook Reconciliation revelation that K577 billion later
reduced to K236 billion had been lost. Yet around the same period Government reported to IMF
on the Extended Credit Facility about the same K92 billion as domestic arrears which were then
sucuritised through domestic borrowing. There was a galore of payments through “promissory
notes” with huge payments in fees to banks discounting the notes. Political leadership blames
legislation and inefficient institutions for failures, extolling political will and support to
accountability institutions while the common refrain from the institutions is often, low or delayed
funding, poor staffing and other resource constraints. In the last 18 months the political leadership
has bragged increased funding and personnel to accountability institutions and a planned Financial
Crimes Court. But accountability institutions have persisted to complain of delays in the judiciary;
delay in establishment of the financial crimes court, delays in disbursement of funding, and
interference.

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Nothing in all this has demonstrated leadership, strategic direction, collaborative or coordinated
planning and implementation. In fact, in 2015 the Government specifically scrapped the Action
Plan of January 2014 developed to fight corruption, fraud and embezzlement before its full cycle,
without evaluation. To date it has not been replaced. Since January 2022 the country has in fact
witnessed open polarization between institutions

Poor fight against corruption, fraud and embezzlement can only be due to the
Leadership Being Clueless, Ego or Clueless Ego; because:

The leadership is aware of the corruption, fraud problem; has shown that it knows what needs to
be done including improving public service delivery; and has consistently promised to deal with
the scourge

All major political parties (DPP, MCP, UDF and UTM) in their 2019 Manifestos had promised
solutions to fraud and corruption; mainly independence of and improved funding or resources to
accountability institutions, including establishment of a financial crimes tribunal. In his
inauguration speech on 4 July 2020 the President specifically identified ‘clearing the rubble ’in the
public service as a priority intervention. In August 2020 the President and his Vice committed to
doing things differently in developing Malawi at the opening of a Development Conference where
the President said “Talk is cheap. Building a new Malawi is a task for our hands, not for our lips”.
In January 2021 Government adopted the Malawi Vision 2063 in which the President and his Vice
committed to mastering “courage and bolster confidence, and begin to believe in our own ideas
and homegrown solutions to community and national level problems” and that to control
corruption “There shall be a shift in focus more towards how these institutions “function” and less
on the “form” of having such institutions in place”. Government on 14 February 2021 established
the Public Systems Review Task Force to review (a) system allowances, (b) system procurement,
(c) conditions of service and (d) restructuring of the public service. A report was submitted on 21
May 2021. Hawa Ndilowe, and John Suzi Banda now Chair of the Public Procurement Authority
were members of the Task Force. During the launch of the Presidential Delivery Unit in October
2021 the President and his Vice unambiguously informed Malawians that the two are ultimately
responsible for the performance and delivery of service of public institutions when President
Chakwera “described himself as the driver of a minibus, Chilima as the mechanic and the MDAs
as the conductors” to deliver to the Malawi people waiting in the village, the goods they promised.

The leadership has a wealth of guidance material resource both at the strategic and
implementation levels

Apart from providing the road map, Vision 2063 provides the priority areas for intervention, and
in its Enabler and Sector Working Group structure, provides the platform for identification,

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consultation and prioritization of implementation actions making monitoring and evaluating
progress easy. This platform would be a driver for the National Anti-Corruption Strategy; the
Democratic Governance Sector Strategy and the Strategic Plans of at least 8 core Accountability
Institutions which have more than 3 institutional objectives and 3 delivery objectives common to
all of them. With these institutions’ budgets, donor support aligned and pooled to the identified
priority sector actions performance and effective delivery would be optimised. Using this platform,
the resolutions of the National Anti-Corruption Conference 2017 with a possible 52-point
measurement reference points; the Commonwealth Anti-Corruption Conference 2017 and the
proposed National Anti-Corruption Conference July 2022 announced by the President would all
feed into consultations and priority actions. Yet, since 2011 the Economic and Democratic
Governance Sector Working Group has been dysfunctional, despite several Government promises
to revive it in 2014, 2017 and 2020 (including a commitment in the Vision 2063 and Budget
Statement 2022-2023 for operationalisation of Pillar and Enabler Coordination Groups). In the
absence of donor support to the budget, this platform would make aid effectiveness (or lack of)
visible or at least ascertainable.

The leadership has been offered mountains of informal and formal advice since inauguration of
the Presidency which has gone to waste

As early as the inauguration day 4 July 2020 the Office of the President was presented with a
concept on how to deal with the frauds and scams in the outstanding backlog of cases with an
estimated value K3 trillion; which was later also submitted to the Ministry of Justice. From the
second half of 2020 to the first half of 2021 there were numerous pieces on how to deal with
corruption, rule of law and ‘clearing the rubble’ discussed in the media by eminent scholars and
writers like Professor Danwood Chirwa, Professor Garton Kamchedzera and Mapwiya Muulupule
of the column “Talking Blues”. There have been pastoral letters from the Catholic Church and the
Church of Central African Presbytery. There have been letters from the Malawi Law Society and
recently Academia in diaspora. There have been running commentaries from social media
influencers like Danial M Chikoja, Mulotwa Mulotwa, Onjezani Kenani, Idriss Ali Nassah, or
Joshua Chisa Mbele

The leadership should draw on institutional memory; and experiences in the region

Cashgate broke in September 2013. Soon after the Secretary to the President and Cabinet Hawa
Ndilowe commissioned a study into its causes and possible response. Government and
development partners established a Steering Committee in the Office of the President and Cabinet
with several sub-committees, followed by the adoption of an Action Plan in January 2014. In April
2014 at the regular Principal Secretaries and Heads of Constitutional Bodies meeting a report on
the study commissioned by the SPC was discussed and a response formulated. Until after
Parliamentary and Presidential Elections in May 2014 all action on Cashgate, Frauds Involving

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public funds and Public Finance Management were guided by the Action Plan and the Steering
Committee which met regularly (at one time once a week). The Action Plan had five result areas
with short, medium and long term actions: Investigation and Prosecution with 13 actions; Auditing
with 14 actions; Accounting with 24 actions; Administrative with 6 actions; and Reforms with 8
actions. All three branches of Government participated. The Judiciary (Lilongwe District Registry
Judge in Charge Chombo and the Chief Justice Nyirenda) and the Ministry of Justice (Minister
Fahad Assani, Attorney General Anthony Kamanga, Solicitor General Janet Banda, and Director
of Public Prosecutions Bruno Kalemba) were actively involved with the planning and
administrative arrangements. The Director of Public Prosecutions was responsible for the
Investigation and Prosecution result area actions undertaken by four integrated teams comprising
investigators and prosecutors from Ministry of Justice, Malawi Police, Anti-Corruption Bureau,
Financial Intelligence Authority (and occasionally MRA, Auditor General and RBM) guided by a
Technical Advisor Kamudoni Nyasulu who was specially appointed prosecutor for fraud involving
public funds. Prosecutions started in earnest in January 2014, adjournments were for less than 14
days for accused persons that were in detention and less than 1 month for those on bail. Out of 27
cases 7 were completed by March 2015 (14 months).
There was no room for scapegoating, blame-shifting or shirking of responsibility in this response.
Apart from those from development partners, most of the members of the Steering Committee and
the Sub-Committees are still alive and in Malawi, many of them still active in the public service;
and should therefore be readily available to provide input when needed or asked. The long process
of state capture inquiry in South Africa, and now recommendations on the report of the Zondo
Commission are an invaluable resource in designing action against fraud and corruption: especially
in approaches to investigation and prosecution.

I hope the submission of the ACB report on 21 or 22 June 2022 will elicit better
strategic actions

18 June 2022
Kamudoni Nyasulu

More at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamudoni-nyasulu-753b9411/recent-activity/posts/