By: Lloyd M’bwana
The 2015’s People and Corruption survey by Transparency International has tagged Malawi in the zone of most corrupt nations in Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) with 69 percent of Malawians believing that in the past 12 months government has failed to fight the worsening corruption.
The report which was published on December 1, 2015, in SADC region, Malawi only falls behind South Africa which has over 80 percent of its citizen saying that corruption has increased in the last year while Botswana came out of as the cleanest in the region with less than 20 percent of people saying there were some forms of corruption when accessing public resources.
The synopsis says that majority of people (58 percent) surveyed in 18 out of 28 countries disclosed increase in corruption over the 12 months saying their governments were performing badly in fighting corruption.
The report comes in the shadows of ongoing anti-corruption crackdown on embezzlement of government money through fraudulent deals public officers make with politicians and business tycoons where millions of Kwachas are stolen in the process leaving poor Malawians unable to access services in public hospitals.
The report revealed cases of corruption were recorded in public institutions citing Malawi Police Service as the most corrupt among the public service providers with others in education sectors (Public schools), health (public hospitals) and government registration systems including issuers of identity documents, voter card and
various forms of permits and utility institutions.
The survey report further disclosed that there was a general perception among Malawians of being empowered to fight corruption while government not doing enough to arrest the situation on the ground such that 13 out of 100 Malawians who sought services from public sector said they pay bribe to access the service.
“It is increasingly clear that citizens are a key part of anti-corruption initiative. However, the survey finds that corruption reporting mechanisms are often seen as too dangerous, ineffective or unclear. More than one out of three Africans thinks that a whistleblower faces negative consequences for reporting corruption,
which is why most people don’t report”, reads part of the report.
However, Bright Molande, Director of Information in the Ministry of information is quoted in the local press dismissing the legibility of the report saying it was a quantification of perception which was not realities on the ground.
The People and Corruption African Survey Report is part of the Global Corruption Barometer by Transparency International conducts survey results from 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa which this year Afro-barometer carried between March 2014 and September 2015, aims at gauging people’s experiences and perceptions of corruptions in their countries for governments to make strides change in economic governance.
