Disband public officers’ asset declarations office
We are still in Zomba waiting for the National Statistical Office to give us unchallengeable evidence that Malawi has more than 20 million people. And you know us well enough by now. We will not leave Wadundiyanji until the NSO proves our suspicion wrong that the Malawian population is exaggerated for purposes of, inter alia, rigging elections and skewing service provision to areas preferred by politicians.
Most Malawians are too young to know and remember what Ngwazi Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda inherited at the State house, when he became Prime Minister in 1963 and President in 1964. Most of us don’t know what he took with him and what he left behind as belonging to the State, when he was leaving State House. He probably declared. But we don’t know what is contained in his declaration, 29 years on.
Although nearly half of Malawians living today were there when Elesoni Bakili Muluzi was getting into State House in 1994 and when he was getting out in 2004, nobody knows what he took with him into and from there. Rumours, just stupid rumours and stupid allegations were rife that a lot of branded cutlery, cats, wildlife such as kudus, antelopes, eagles, and hyenas and other paraphernalia got ‘personalised’ from State House. Foolish rumours. Nothing serious.
Likewise, we don’t know what (ka)Ngwazi Dr Bingu wa Mutharika and his family took to State house in 2004 and what his family left behind after our beloved shoot-to-kill president died suddenly in April 2012. Rumours, stupid rumours, say that a lot of gold plating that adorned the new State house, now Kamuzu Palace, was taken away as people scrambled to get and hide whatever they could before their jobs expired. We repeat that these are foolish rumours. Nothing serious.
Do you know what Joyce Banda took into State House in 2012 and took from there in 2014? We don’t know.
Do you know what Professor Peter Arthur Mutharika took with him into State house in 2014? We don’t know either. Do you know what he and his family took away to his private residence in Mangochi in those 10 huge trucks? We don’t know? Some of us thought he had carried with him his K5 billion cement to finish his residence. But the president-emeritus said, Pilate-like, that he did not know anything about the said cement. And we believe him because he is a gentleman and an elderly statesman. Gentle elderly statesmen don’t steal. Do they?
Do you know what Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera took into State House? We don’t know. Do you know what your PS, Deputy PS, Speaker of Parliament, district commissioner, and head teacher, etc brought with them into their offices? Personalisation of public property, including official vehicles, farm tractors, is not news in Malawi. Just look around you. Now.
Luckily for Malawi, in 2013, Parliament passed a law, the Public Officers Declaration of Assets, Liabilities and Business Interests Act. According to Schedule II of this law, 49 categories of public officers need to periodically declare their assets, liabilities and businesses. The public officers include the State President, Vice-President, the Speaker and deputy Speakers of the National Assembly, Cabinet ministers, MPs, mayors, councillors, judges, directors, vice-chancellors and registrars of public universities. Disappointingly, imams, priests, CSO, and NGO leaders do not appear as public officers. They should, because they subsist on the sweat of the local and international public. Faith leaders must be accountable to their herds.
Our leader of delegation, the indomitable, unbreakable, ‘undisappointable’ Abiti Prof Dr Joyce Befu, MG 66 and MEGA-1 asks: Why should someone spend money and time seeking what should be public?
And what use is the public officers’ asset declaration information if it is not readily available to the public, the voters? She recommends that because it is a waste of public resources and mere legal decoration, the “public officers’ asset declarations office” should be disbanded hic et nunc and its current officers posted elsewhere.
