Queries have emerged on the relevance of lifestyle audits that State law enforcement agencies led by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) plan to conduct on individuals in both public and private sectors purportedly to fight corruption.
To facilitate the exercise, ACB developed a Lifestyle Audit Manual, which is awaiting Cabinet approval.
In an interview last week on the progress of the manual, Solicitor General and Secretary for Justice Allison M’bang’ombe said implementation awaits Cabinet approval.
“The Cabinet committee on legal and constitutional affairs adopted the manual. Full Cabinet must approve it,” he said.
M’bang’ombe stressed that the manual was critical in dealing with corruption, a crime that takes place between willing partners; hence, making it difficult to prove.
He said: “That is why Section 32 of the Corrupt Practices Act [CPA] was put in place [possession of unexplained property].
“Unfortunately, Section 32 applies to public officers only while the lifestyle audit extends to people that are not public officers.”
But private practice lawyer Justin Dzonzi said extending the audits to private individuals without changing the CPA was problematic. He also said having too many legal and administrative instruments was not helpful.
He said: “The manual cannot introduce a new category of individuals who might be subject to corrupt practices if the CPA does not cover such individuals. The manual is just an administrative instrument. So, they may need to amend this first on private citizens.
“A Roman philosopher once said that if you see laws multiplying, then the Republic is hopelessly corrupt. So, in Malawi, we are multiplying laws because we want to be seen to be doing something, when in fact there is no commitment in fighting corruption.”
In a separate interview, Centre for Social Transparency and Accountability executive director Willy Kambwandira said the current laws were sufficient to decisively deal with corruption, including sanctioning errant listed public officers who fail to declare their assets.
He said: “What we see is that public institutions that have been mandated to fight corruption are failing to serve Malawians either because of incompetence or some of them are in conflict of interest.”
Kambwandira also argued that Malawi lacks political will to curb corruption, saying it was unheard of for a country riddled with corruption to stay six months without a director general at ACB to make strategic decisions.
The bureau is working on the lifestyle audit manual project with the Office of the Director of Public Officers’ Declaration, Financial Intelligence Authority, Malawi Police Service and National Intelligence Services, among others.
Human Rights Defenders Coalition chairperson Gift Trapence said such a policy is needed to fill loopholes.
But he said the delay by Cabinet could suggest that government is afraid to make the policy operational for fear that some of the incumbent office bearers could be affected.
There was no immediate response from the ACB as its spokesperson Egrita Ndala had not responded to our questionnaire by press time.
