Malawi: 
Malawi’s corruption ranking worsens

Malawi’s corruption ranking worsens

Emmanuel Muwamba

Malawi has slipped seven steps lower on the Transparency International 2005 (TI) index, an outcome the civil society has agreed with, saying the current government has not done enough to arrest corruption.

But government has said TI is entitled to its opinion arguing that it (government) is doing all it can to improve its record on the perception.

The report released a fortnight ago shows that Malawi, whose ranking last year was 90, has now slipped to 97 while Botswana continued to top the list in Africa. Botswana is now listed at 31 on the list making it the least corrupt country in Africa followed by South Africa which has moved from 44 to 46. On the other hand, Zambia whose ranking was 102, slipped five steps to 107 while Chad and Bangladesh are ranked the most corrupt countries.

Deputy Information Minister John Bande in an interview on Wednesday attributed the slip to carried forward cases that have not been concluded and also fresh cases which government is fighting in court.

“We give the TI a chance but we will improve on that index tremendously when cases that are in court like the [Yusuf] Mwawa, [Sam] Mpasu, [Clement] Stambuli and [former President] Bakili Muluzi are concluded in court. We are determined to improve,” Bande said.

Institute for Policy Interaction Executive Director Rafiq Hajat agreed that the slip on the index is a result of the outstanding issues regarding corruption in the country. Hajat cited the awarding of a treadle pumps contract and the fertilizer fiasco where government awarded to a company linked to al Qaeda as some of the outstanding cases.

Human Rights Consultative Committee Executive Director Rodgers Newa said President Bingu wa Mutharika’s administration should be given a chance. He observed that the Mutharika administration has not recovered from the corrupt practices of the 10 years of the reign of his predecessor Bakili Muluzi which was involved in high level corruption.

According to IT, countries that scored less than 3 on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) indicates serious problems of corruption and Malawi scored 2.8. CPI Score relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts and ranges between 10 (highly clean) to 0 highly corrupt.

TI chairperson Peter Eigen said corruption is a major cause of poverty and a barrier to overcoming it.