Obituary on graft-fight under Tonse
Following the interdiction of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director general (DG) Martha Chizuma on Wednesday this week, we can as well start writing an obituary for the fight against graft in the country under the Tonse administration.
It is no brainer that government and other people have been trying to entrap Chizuma. They have succeeded. Here in this encasement domiciled at the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) at Capital Hill in Lilongwe now lie vestiges and skeletons of the fight against corruption in Malawi that one revered and passionate anti-corruption crusader Martha Chizuma once upon a time initiated. Her name is inscribed on the casing with words: We loved you Martha to the moon and back but unfortunately you could not decode the hidden meanings of your unwritten job description in your appointment letter. This is Malawi where ‘Yes’ sometimes means ‘No’. A dog that hounds its master has its number of days in the palace limited. Beloved by all who knew you. Gone but not forgotten.
It has been 22 months since President Lazarus Chakwera appointed Chizuma as the graft-fighting body’s DG. He picked the industrious and results-oriented Chizuma after the nation had seen her work as Ombudsman where she revolutionised operations of her office and took on public officers who acted contrary to the requirements of their professions.
But there was a fly in the milk. Her name was supposed to be confirmed by the Public Appointments Committee (PAC) of Parliament. PAC must have read issues well and hence rejected Chizuma. This is depsite that the same body had renewed her contract a year earlier as the Ombudsman. Nine out of 18 members of Pac present voted against confirming her. Tonse Alliance members in the committee suspected her rejection was a calculated move by the opposition members of the group to block her appoinment fearing she would go after some of them once given the job as some of the MPs were apparently answering corruption charges.
Presssure piled on Pac starting with Chakwera who expressed disappointment with the outturn. The Human Rights Defenders Coalition then started mobilising the people for a nationwide demonstration designed to force Pac to confirm Chizuma. Six days later on May 18 2021 Pac yieled to the public pressure and confirmed Chizuma. But little did the Tonse Alliance members in the committee know that there would be no sacred cows in her crusade against graft.
Speaking after appearing before Pac that same week, Chizuma pledged to use ACB to make Malawians feel unformfortable with corruption. “I would like to make Malawians feel uncomfortable with corruption.”
But as it has turned out it is some big dogs in the Tonse Alliance administration that have been most uncomfortable not with corruption but with Chizuma. And all seemed well with her until there was Operation Scuttleman, a codename for investigation agents of the National Crimes Agency (NCA) of the UK launched to probe businessman Zuneth Sattar whose wealth they were blown away with. NCA’s findings: Sattar had extensive business deals with the Malawi government. Over 80 people in the public sector, the police, army, civil society, the media et cetera are said to have been on Sattar’s raddar as recpients of his splargees. This is according to an ACB report to President Chakwera.
Chizuma has never seen sunshine since her organisation released that report. While she has been fighting corruption alright the vice has also been fighting her. The most outlandish of such manouvres and machinations has been a leaked audio which an unidentified person secretly recorded of her. While the one who recorded the audio is scortfree, Chizuma has, among other things, been charged with criminal libel. Following the charges, Secretary to the President and Cabinet Collen Zamba interdicted Chizuma on Wednesday. All the while Chakwera has been assuring Malawians he fully supports Chizuma in her crusade to fight corruption in the country. And true to his word, when she was arrested on December 6 last year, Chakwera declared to all and sundry the State had dropped all charges against her and ordered the police to unconditionally release her.
But the President has not lived up to his word. With the SPC authoring the interdiction letter, we can say without fear of contradiction that OPC has now truly started presiding over the erection of a tombstone and inscribing a sad eptaph on Chizuma’s illustrious and result-oriented fight against corruption in the country. Until we meet again. Malaians have lost.
