US urges Malawi citizens to demand accountability from leaders
United States of America (USA) Ambassador Virginia Palmer has urged Malawians to demand greater transparency and accountability from those in power and that leaders should take bold move to expose and prosecute cases of corruption to its logical conclusion.
The US ambassador said she had hoped the public sector reforms that were touted as a President Peter Mutharika legacy-shaping blue print to clean up the public service, would be more responsive, accountable and effective to support economic growth and development.
Speaking on the occasion of US 242nd independence anniversary in Lilongwe on Wednesday, Palmer said she expects graft-busting body carrying independent investigations on corruption and bring suspects to book as well as making sure cases are concluded.
“I would like to see investigations carried all the way to their conclusions including prosecutions and convictions and when that happens, the signal goes out to people who are trying to steal that it won’t be tolerated,” said Palmer.
“ Fighting corruption successfully is essential for Malawi to reach its development goals, improve public service delivery and attract investment.”
US envoy who is ending her tour of duty in the country, maintained that she is passionate about public sector reforms by President Mutharika’s government, stating it is key to improving Malawi’s investment climate and making Malawi more prosperous and making the Malawi government more efficient.
She said it is also critical that Malawi implement “ a cost reflective electricity tariffs” and one of the country’s key utilities, Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) should remain “creditworthy and free from manipulation.”
Escom has admitted the prevalence of serious misprocurement that have threatened to bring down the power sector.
According to Escom board chairperson Thom Mpinganjira , the board had order had ordered a forensic investigation into disregard of procurement rules and regulations at the State firm in the recent past.
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You keep on barking just to make news, but do nothing in the name of diplomacy. Is this helping us anyway? Which is better to make noise and get nothing done or keep quiet. I guess the difference is the same.
The bottom line is nobody should be free from prosecution. No Immunity for the head of state. No duty free status for politicians. Almost all politicians are business people. How tax, then goes uncollected under the guise of “duty free status”?
What political leaders did so well from 1964 was to numb a whole generation not to question leadership or elders. The culture is so entrenched that it is difficult to take it out of a typical Malawian. This is why it is difficult to get political leaders to account for wrongdoing. Politicians have disempowered and corrupted the very crime-busting units they created. They even have the powers to appoint heads of these crime-busting units and yet they talk of independence of law enforcement agencies. If anything the laws should be changed in such a way that the appointments of heads… Read more »
These azungus play double standards with African politics and policies. They make a lot of noise in public about corruption and money laundering yet they are the same people (Europeans and Americans) who allow African leaders to buy expensive mansions, hotels or even opening off shore bank accounts in their countries with corrupt money. Stop this nonsense. You should first address the problem where you happily accept corrupt leaders to acquire mansions, hotels in your country and make noise to be seen as if you are concerned with the poor African on the loss of their money through corruption and… Read more »
So she is lying huh! You must feel pity for yourself
what you saying might be true but stopping corruption in Africa or Malawi does not require the whites to first tell us that we are corrupt then to tell us ways of ending corruption.It begins with us.If we ourselves we clap hands for these leaders and we fail to prosecute them ,how can a foreign country do that for us?These people are citizens of malawi not from america or europe so our courts are the first to issues warrants of arrest and freezing their income.Some one can not be denied entry into america or europe based on allegations that they… Read more »