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Assets office names,shames defaulters

The Office of the Director of Public Officers’ Declarations (Odpod) has published names of defaulters in the Malawi Government Gazette for the 2022/2023 financial year.

This aims at enforcing sanctions and promote transparency in the public service, especially regarding the financial standings of senior public officials as part of a broader strategy to crack down on corruption and abuse of office for self-aggrandizement. Odpod director Michael Chiusiwa disclosed to Nation on Sunday this week the names were published in gazette No. 3 822: Vol. LXI No. 62 on December 13, 2024.

In the 2022/23 financial year, five institutions, including the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) failed to submit declarations out of 208.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs only filed half of the expected declarations.

Ngunde: The Act is vague on who should exercise powers I Nation

Other non-compliant institutions included Chitipa District Council, Northern Region Education Division, Central West Education Division and Central East Education Division.

At individual level, 1 788 out of 14 571 listed public officers (LPOs) failed to comply, representing an 88 percent compliance rate, up from 77 percent in the previous period.

In the 2021/22 fiscal year, 7 000 LPOs did not submit their declarations.

Major defaulters in the upcoming report include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services, Department of Civil Aviation, Malawi Police Service, the Judiciary, Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom), Malawi Posts Corporation (MPC), Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority and Kamuzu Central Hospital.

However, compliance among political figures was high, with Cabinet members at 100 percent, parliamentarians at 99 percent and ward councillors at 98 percent. Local councils lagged behind with an 86 percent compliance rate.

For councillors, Mangochi Town and District councils have three councillors each who did not submit their declaration, Balaka, Machinga and Lilongwe City Council have one each while Lilongwe District has two councillors who did not comply.”

Ministries, which account for eight percent of all LPOs in the country, registered a 78 percent compliance rate, an improvement from last year’s 63 percent score.

Ministries of Energy, Tourism and Justice registered 100 percent compliance rate while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the worst performer with a 41 percent score as 97 officers, mostly from embassies, defaulted.

Chiusiwa expressed the need for a law review to grant them more authority to sanction defaulters directly.

He said: “We are struggling with resources to verify data we receive since the declaration regime may not be effective or meaningful if not ascertained about their veracity. In most cases, we have determined suspicious information declared, but just like other agencies, we lack the ability to escalate, interrogate, interview and verify.

“In the absence of mobility to inspect the assets, liabilities and business interests of listed public officers, I’m sure public officers may be declared as a mere formality.”

A Special Law Commission began reviewing the Act in September 2021 and, according to Chiusiwa, not less than K30 million is required to finalise the process.

“We manage over 12 000 declarations manually. To ensure efficiency, we are transcribing them onto an automated system as part of our reforms. This has taken time to achieve data accuracy,” he said.

The Public Officers (Declaration of Assets, Liabilities and Business Interests) Act compels LPOs to declare their assets in the first three months of the year or after occupying a listed position.

Section 18 of the Act, among others, calls for the dismissal of listed officers who “without reasonable cause”, fail to submit the required declarations.

For elected officials, this could mean their seats being declared vacant and a ban from participating in subsequent elections.

Under the current regime, all eyes will be on Speaker of Parliament Catherine Gotani Hara as she addresses the issue of the 11 MPs who failed to declare their assets within 90 days of assuming office.

These legislators, whose names have not yet been disclosed, were found to be noncompliant during the 2019/2020 financial year.

Odpod referred their names to the Parliamentary Monitoring Committee (PMC) for further inquiry.

The list of non-compliant legislators, seen by Nation on Sunday, includes five independents, three from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), two from Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and one from UTM Party.

PMC’s role is drawn from Section 213 (4) of the Constitution, as read with Section 13 (2) (b) (c) of the Public Officers (Declaration of Assets, Liabilities and Business Interests) Act.

It comprises Public Appointments, Legal Affairs as well as Budget and Finance parliamentary committees.

Malawi Law Society honorary secretary Chrispin Ngunde in an earlier interview pointed out that the Act is vague and requires clearer regulations to specify who should exercise certain powers.

 “Section 19 provides for disqualification from public office and reference for investigating public officers who fail to disclose their assets or who provide inaccurate information. However, it is not clear as to who should exercise this power and what procedure is to be followed,” he said.

Ngunde also suggested that instead of just reporting to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the police or Anti-Corruption Bureau any evidence or reasonable suspicion of criminal activity by a listed public officer as stipulated under Section 11(2) (j) of the Act, the Odpod also needs to have prosecutorial powers.

 “We suggest the law should be amended and the Odpod should be submitting copies of verified declarations to the ACB, the DPP, the police and FIA [Financial Intelligence Authority] for scrutiny regardless of whether there is reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or not. These institutions have the capacity to investigate and prosecute.”

The directorate had previously struggled to publish a summary of declarations as mandated by the Public Officers’ (Declarations of Business Interests) Act 2013.

The directorate attributed the delay to limited human resources, which hindered the data capture necessary for the gazette and other reports.

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