Germany wants Malawi to strengthen auditing body, fight corruption
Germany’s Parliamentary State Secretary, Ms Gudrun Kopp, has urged Malawi President Mrs Joyce Banda corruption in its totality.
Kopp is on her four-day visit to Malawi and met with Banda, Africa’s second woman leader after Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, at her official residence State House in Lilongwe on Tuesday where the two exchanged warm words.
She discussed with President Banda on how to fight corruption and strengthen the National Audit Office (NAO) to ensure transparency and accountability on the tax payer’s money.
The German top official said her government was ready to provide expertise that would help in building the system in an organ mandated to check abuse of public resources.
“You really need to have a reliable system,” she said.
“We will therefore be sending a team of experts to Malawi to help strengthen the system,” Kopp added.
Published reports recently indicated that donors, who support Malawi’s development efforts, are losing confidence in NAO, set up to check against misuse of public resources.
Norwegian Embassy was the first to raise the alarm and they’ve been joined by the United Kingdom’s (UK) Department for International Development (DfID).
Revelations of the NAO’s financial impropriety have come to the fore after an external audit conducted by professional certified accountants firm, Deloitte. The audit raises serious questions vis-à-vis the credibility of the country’s supreme auditing body.
During a visit to Malawi, United State Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton also warned the Malawi government against corruption, which she called a “hidden tax on the Malawi people”.
Banda was sworn in as president in April following the death of late president Bingu wa Mutharika.
She swiftly set about restoring relations with foreign donors, who had suspended funds due to concerns about hardline governance and rights issues under Mutharika.
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