Zomba Thondwe member of Parliament (MP) Charles Tikhiwa (Democratic Progressive Party-DPP) has proposed that civil society organisations (CSOs) should be able to take up corruption cases to court if the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) fails to do so.
The legislator was responding to findings of a study commissioned by the Civil Society Education Coalition (Csec) which indicated that corruption remains a big challenge in implementing innovative models of funding for education.
Educationist Limbani Nsapato undertook the study whose outcomes he disseminated to the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Science and Technology on Tuesday.
According to Tikhiwa, it does not make sense for CSOs to expose corrupt practices and leave the cases without any logical conclusion.
“There is a lot of money that is unaccounted for. The CSOs can handle some of these issues because ACB [is facing challenges] in terms of human resources, among others. [Through that], perhaps we can address some of these corruption cases,” he said.
Reacting to the proposal, Nsapato agreed that in other countries there are arrangements called public interest litigations where CSOs go to courts where public governance institutions are not taking the necessary steps.
Speaking in an interview yesterday, Malawi Law Society (MLS) honorary secretary Michael Goba Chipeta said CSOs can indeed take a matter to court after investigating and getting all the necessary evidence that a criminal activity occurred.
He said CSOs can either approach the police, the ACB or any investigating agency to take up the matters or appoint a lawyer who can seek consent from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to prosecute a particular criminal case. n
