‘JB’s govt should fight official corruption’

Fighting official corruption and wastefulness in government is about leadership integrity and political will. A Transparency International (TI) country report of 2004 cites “lack of ethical leadership and integrity among many leaders in both the private and public sectors” as ‘fuelling’ corruption in the country and encouraging an unhelpful attitude towards wastefulness in both sectors.

It faults the leaders for failing to set “high moral standards” to be emulated by the citizenry. It accuses top leaders—of both the public and private sectors—of practising politics of patronage, nepotism, abuse and misappropriation of official resources and wastefulness which have been copied by or influenced the behaviour of those below them.

The role of top ruling party politicians and top government officials in the ‘plundering’ of the grain reserves, which left 60 000 people to die of starvation, has not been exposed.

Both Joyce Banda’s predecessors, Bakili Muluzi and Bingu wa Mutharika, failed to realise that any activity such as promotion of chiefs and building them personal houses as well as buying them expensive vehicles, doling out financial and material inducements, including Farm Input Subsidy and Food for Work Programmes to the general population—using public resources that serves political parties more— is deemed to be official political corruption.

The country also now knows their dismal ‘contributions’ to the fight against official corruption and wastefulness.

The political leadership must be squeaky clean as the law allows if they are to be trusted to fight corruption. Anything less will see the whole nation in the belly of corruption. And before we know it, a third of the national budget is in the drains and the aid hat passes back empty.

Below are some of your comments on the story ‘Unjust Justice’ we published on October 5 2012.

 

On unjust justice

I read the story ‘Unjust Justice’ in The Nation of October 5 2012. This is very sad considering that when the Mwale family was engaging this lawyer, they wanted to be assisted. It is also very sad because the office of the Attorney General is not assisting this family. Many lawyers are not remitting clients’ money once it is paid. We have read a lot of these cases; some of them are being referred to the Malawi Law Society only to discover that nothing is done although the lawyer mentioned really mismanaged the clients money. Justice should be done here. It is a fact that the lawyer received the money long time ago and he never gave his clients the compensation. Let the court move this case so that other lawyers should take a precedent from this.

The Mwales are being denied justice here.

DM/ Via e-mail

Protecting their own

It is clear to me that the Malawi Law Society and the law profession are protecting one of their own in the Salawes’ case. The only option is for the family to institute criminal proceedings against the lawyer who failed to remit their K5 million. They may not get their money back but at least justice will be served. Really sad.

CN/Via e-mail

Delayed justice

It is sad that the issue about the Mwales and the lawyer who failed to remit their K5 million is dragging and the Mwales continue to suffer in these biting times. They definitely would have been better off had the money been paid to them at the stipulated time. The Attorney General needs to do more rather than quickly settling out of court some other trivial cases.

Justice delayed is justice denied!

TK/Via e-mail

Lawyer’s bad conduct

Of late we have heard many stories concerning expensive charges from lawyers. In fact, it is only few Malawians who can engage a lawyer due to exorbitant charges.

The conduct of the lawyer in the ‘Unjust justice’ story of the Mchinji family is very sad and shocking. The lawyer is painting a bad picture on the law profession.

In short, the lawyer should pay back the money and bearing in mind how Mrs Mwale is suffering to fend for her day-to-day family needs. We also urge government to intervene in the matter so that justice takes its course.

HM/ Via e-mail