Parliamentary committee calls for IICs membership guidelines, alternative financing in corruption fight
The Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs has recommended introduction of guidelines for constituting the membership of Institutional Integrity Committees (IICs) and alternative financing for the activities of IICs, among others.
The recommendations follow the committee’s field visits on establishment and functionality of IICs for the period January to May 2023, whose report was presented Wednesday in Parliament.
The National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) II, fostering a holistic approach in fighting corruption, calls for the establishment of IICs in ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and private sector.
The aim of the IICs is to help mainstream the fight against corruption.
The Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs, being one of the governance structures of NACS II playing an oversight responsibility over the National Integrity Committee, conducted meetings with some selected public institutions from 18th to 19th January and 2nd to 4th May, 2023.
Reads in part the report presented by Chairperson of the committee, Dr. Albert Mbawala:
“There is need to review NACS II in order to incorporate guidelines for constituting the membership of IICs in order to avoid incidences where the membership is dominated by senior managers of institutions.
“Considering that the 1% ORT funding is inadequate, institutions should endeavour to find alternative ways of financing the activities of IICs to ensure full implementation of their annual work plans”.
The Committee, specifically, visited and held discussions with the following local authorities: Thyolo, Mangochi, Blantyre, Salima, Mchinji, Mmbelwa, Lilongwe and Mzuzu City.
The Committee also held discussions with the IIC for the Reserve Bank of Malawi.
Among other findings, the committee noted with concern that the IICs for some of the institutions were disorganized and lacked coordination amongst their members in the implementation of anti-corruption initiatives.
This, according to the report, was noted further by a critical lack of coherence in their presentations, which led the committee to believe that the IIC members had not been convening regularly to brief each other on how to strategize implementations of anti-corruption action plans.
Another finding is that most IICs are experiencing high levels of staff turnover due to frequent transfers of their members to other institutions, thereby creating a situation that needed the IICs to be constantly re-oriented on their roles and responsibilities by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), which is costly.
On recommendations, the committee further urges the need to have clear sanctions targeting controlling officers who deliberately frustrate the work of IICs with the aim of covering up corruption incidences at workplaces.
The committee adds that, considering that ACB is heavily understaffed in the area of corruption prevention and civic education, efforts should be made to recruit more staff at the bureau so that institutions, including those at local authority level, are adequately served.
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