Despite the Office of the Ombudsman going full-throttle to address injustices in government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), it has emerged that 86 percent of its determinations are not complied with.
In its 2023 annual report, the office said it undertook 46 inquiries which yielded 44 determinations, representing a 300 percent increase from the previous reporting period.
Reads the report: “Out of the 44 determinations, three determinations were complied with, three were dismissed during the inquiry and 38 determinations were not complied with, representing 6.8 percent, 6.8 percent and 86.4 percent, respectively.”
The report further shows that the Malawi Police Service topped the list of respondent institutions which had complaints lodged against them.
The Police had 22 complaints against it followed by the Ministry of Education with 17, the Judiciary with 13, the Ministry of Health with 10, the Accountant General’s Department with nine nine and the Malawi Legal Aid Bureau with eight.
On the other hand, State produce trader the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) along with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services had the least complaints at three each.
Section 124 of the country’s Constitution empowers the Ombudsman to “initiate contempt proceedings before the High Court against any person or authority in connection with non-compliance with the powers conferred in this section”.
In an interview, National Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya said he was yet to see the report, as such, could not respond immediately.
For the Ministry of Health, the report observed that the use of hospital personnel in handling health complaints has proved challenging in terms of commitment and impartiality.
“There is under reporting or zero reporting of hospital ombudsman in District Health Information System,” it reads.
The report said the Hospital Ombudsman mechanism received 9 219 complaints, out of which 4 221 were resolved, representing 46 percent in complaint resolution.
In an interview on the findings in the report, Ministry of Health spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe said the issue of who holds the hospital ombudsman office is beyond the ministry.
He said the Office of the Ombudsman would do better to have neutral people playing the role of hospital ombudsman.
Chikumbe said the ministry already opened it up for councils to decide who should be the hospital ombudsman.
He said: “We agree with the complaints. It is hard for a health personnel to act on an issue involving someone in the same profession.
“Take it where the complaint is against someone who is more senior than the person holding the office of the hospital ombudsman. Can a junior act on a complaint against the hospital in-charge?”
However, Chikumbe said the ministry is putting in place committees people can report their complaints to, and the committees will be working with the hospital ombudsman.
In the year under review, the Office of the Ombudsman handled 760 new complaints of which 208 were admitted for investigations, 552 were handled using other forms of complaints handling while 453 files were closed for various reasons.
The office also concluded 186 complaints and remedial actions handed down on the complaints are either pending implementation by MDAs awaiting action by the complainants.
The report says most of the concluded complaints are awaiting payments by the Accountant General or auditing by the Auditor General’s department while some are awaiting complainants’ action.
The office said it will continue to engage the Auditor General’s office to have mechanisms that can help expedite processes.
Other challenges cited in the report include delays in computation of past pension liabilities for members of staff that were in employment before July 1 2012. The office of ombudsman also failed to access K116 million due to delays in funding.
In 2022, Ombudsman Grace Malera, in her report to Parliament which outlined how her office fared in implementing its programmes, put the compliance rate at 18 percent.
She said: “The determination compliance rate of the cases followed up in 2020 was at 18 percent. Some of the causes for this being lack of urgency by some respondents when it comes to complying with the directives,” the Ombudsman reported.
The Ombudsman said determinations were not complied with largely due to lack of punitive laws and administrative inefficiencies in public institutions.
