Transparency International (TI) has urged African leaders, to renew their commitment to fight corruption in its entirety to ensure citizens are not deprived of development.
The call comes as African countries under the African Union (AU) commemorated the 5th African Anti-Corruption Day on Sunday, July 11.
The day was designated by the AU and this year it was held under the theme ‘Regional Economic Communities and their Role in Implementation of the AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption.’
In a joint letter signed by 28 TI national chapters, including Malawi, and addressed to AU member States, the organisation called upon countries to eliminate corruption to better lives of African citizens.
In an interview on Sunday, national coordinator of Integrity Platform, which is Transparency International’s National Chapter in Formation for Malawi, Jeff Kabondo, while commending President Lazarus Chakwera for supporting the fight against corruption by ensuring that adequate resources for law enforcement agencies are allocated in the national budget, said government must act swiftly on current and outstanding corruption cases.
He said: “Government must ensure that stolen assets are recovered and reallocated for development use. “
In a seperate interview, University of Malawi professor of political science Blessings Chinsinga said Malawi remains least developed in terms of human capital, manufacturing and service provision because of widespread and deeply entrenched grand corruption.
