Malawi corruption worsens, TI Index shows: ‘Current generation of Malawians leaders are beyond redemption’

Malawi has within a space of four years slid from position 88 globally on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of Transparency International (TI) to 120 in 2016, reveals the annual publication by the international NGO tackling issues of corruption.

The Index results were announced in Lilongwe by National Integrity Platform (NIP) which is comprised of the key institutions that contribute to the fight against corruption in the country.

The CPI generally defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefit.”

The report finds that corruption has increased in Malawi.

Boniface Dulani, a political scientist based at Chancellor College of the University of Malawi (Unima) who attended the NIP announcement of the index took to Twitter to say he is not surprised with the ranking.

“I’m not surprised #Malawi has dropped on #2016CPI score..if anything, my surprise is that we have not fallen further,” Dulani tweeted.

“Current generation of Malawian leaders are beyond redemption..let’s focus on the youth to fight corruption,” another tweet from Dulani reads.

But Andrew Likaka counter-argued in his tweet: “Remember that majority of people who were involved in cashgate (corruption scandal) were the youths. Maybe focus on children.”

Dulani further noted that “defective social norms” are  contributing to worsening corruption.

“Even chiefs are involved in corruption,” said Dulani.

NIP technical advisor Karen Del Biondo said  Malawi need to tackle “grand corruption cases such as Cashgate and now we have the Maizegate.”

Government spokesman Nicholous Dausi, who is also Minister if Information, said govermene does not contest the index.

“But as government we are doing our best to end corruption,” he said.

Dausi said the poor rating gives the government a wake-up call “so that we work harder to root out corruption and improve our standing.”

He added: “The ratings are lessons for us  and we will  do what is necessary to improve so that we can ensure corruption is news of the past.”

Each year TI scores countries on the apparent corruption of their public sectors. TI believes its CPI “sends a powerful message and governments have been forced to take notice and act.”

Best and worst

The Berlin-based group said in its statement that “deep-rooted” reforms were needed worldwide to tackle the inequality and systemic corruption that have proved such “fertile ground” for populists.

For its 2016 index, the watchdog ranked 176 countries on a scale of 0-100, where zero means very corrupt and 100 signifies very clean.

The data is based on surveys from the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Economist Intelligence unit and other bodies.

New Zealand and Denmark shared the number one spot with a score of 90 points, with Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway rounding out the top five of squeaky clean nations.

Strife-torn Somalia was the worst offender in the list for a 10th year running, followed by South Sudan, North Korea and Syria.

Qatar suffered the biggest fall, with a score 10 points lower than last year’s, which TI put down to the corruption claims dogging the country’s 2022 FIFA World Cup bid.

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