JB responsible for Cashgate—survey
Over 40 percent of Malawians believe former president Joyce Banda was responsible for the plunder of public purse popularly known as Cashgate, a study by the Institute for Public Opinion and Policy Research (IPOPR) has revealed.
The public perception on Cashgate, whose results were released in Lilongwe last week, said 41 percent of respondents believe Banda and her People’s Party (PP) were responsible for the plunder of the public purse that culminated in what is now called Cashgate.
Lead researcher for the study Boniface Dulani said the findings could also explain the failure by former president Banda to win the 2014 elections.
He pointed to separate studies by research institute, Afrobarometer, which indicated a trend on why Banda’s popularity plunged while in office.
According to Dulani, in the recent study, respondents were asked to mention a person they thought was most responsible for Cashgate and said their responses reflected public perceptions on the scandal.
But Dulani described as worrying other findings of the study which indicate that Malawians were not concerned about the scandal.
According to the study, 17 percent of the respondents say all politicians were responsible, while 16 percent blame the late Bingu wa Mutharika and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for the mess. It also says 10 percent believe all civil servants were at fault with six percent of the respondents blaming the scandal on Cabinet ministers.
responsible: Mphwiyo
Three percent of the respondents believe former director of budget in the Ministry of Finance Paul Mphwiyo, who is also a suspect in Cashgate cases, was responsible for the scam while two percent of the respondents blamed the country’s first multiparty democracy president Bakili Muluzi and his UDF for the corruption that has been covered in Cashagte.
According to the findings, only six percent of respondents said they were concerned about the scandal while another six percent said they were not concerned, but 71 percent of Malawians said they were just “somewhat concerned”.
“What it shows is a sense of resignation by Malawians that corruption in this country is rampant and endemic.
“What this is further telling us is that Malawians would rather worry about food than corruption in government. They are saying ‘let’s worry about the things we can do something about’,” said Dulani.
He explained that the survey was commissioned in February 2014, but the results were not made public until last week.
The findings follow a recent Governance and Corruption Report Index by the Centre for Social Research indicating that corruption is worsening in the country.
Cashgate was uncovered in September 2013 when a junior civil servant was caught with millions of kwacha stashed in his car.
A forensic study that covered six months revealed that over K24 billion was stolen between April and September 2013, but the figure of the money that was lost from 2009 to 2014 is suspected to have now reached over K577 billion.
My views on the survey results were positive, overall, and I was ready to commend Mr Dulani and co. … until I read that this study was done in February, 2014.
Dulani should be ashamed, no less, for being so lazy. We are interested in what people believe, currently. Not what they believed, eighteen months ago. Even the former president, Joisi Banda, cannot attach any practicality to this. She might, wrongly, believe that the court of public opinion currently absolves her of responsibility for “Cashgate”.
It shouldn’t surprise anybody that the folks who used to shout “wakuba yomweyo” in 1994 couldn’t care less that govt funds are being looted now. We are simply a useless bunch of losers.
EU/US, world bank, IMF criticised Bingu’s attempt to economic freedom and independency. They fixed JB who sat idle and wait for western ill advice to destroy economy. Watch out the west wants us to remain in debt. and beg them. The malawian economy was rising until Satanism penetrated into greedy demons like chasowa, demonstrators, vigil advocates, stupid activists and Bingu’s murderers. We need patience instead of politicking everything.
A survey of this nature is misleading as what the public believe or is made to believe is irrelevant to material facts. We can perceive things from our point of view but that does not necessarily mean that we should ignore the given facts. If people are being fed the wrong facts, then their perception will also be affected to an extent by such erroneous or incorrect facts. Attaching percentages as to who could have been responsible when culprits are being convicted is just bizarre and unhelpful.
Researchers should do us a favour by staying clear of such type of research and concentrate on themes such as those which can help to understand why as Malawians seem tolerate corruption more than other nationalities and maybe we could start putting in place programs which would have a real impact in fighting this evil amongst us. Or why do Malawians tolerate some much rubbish from politicians?
This was a very cheap survey. It should not have come from learned people like Dr Dulani. You are cheapening yourselve. Please do serious research not a silly and cheap survey like this one. Of what benefit is this survey to Malawians? May be President Mutharika was right. that do not have better things to do. There are so many research papers that you can do. If you do not have better topics, ask us through newspapers. We will give you.
I hope you were not paid a lot of money, otherwise it was just a ripple off. You should not have carried out this survey. It is useless!