President Joyce Banda Malawi : Time for action on ‘Cashgate’ corruption scandal

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President Joyce Banda Malawi Time for action on
Cashgate corruption scandal
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Malawi Time for action on Cashgate corruption
scandalThere is a real fear in Malawi that when
Parliament is dissolved on 20 March ahead of
elections slated for 20 May, the senior members
of the network responsible for one of the
countrys biggest corruption scandals, dubbed
Cashgate, will escape justice.President Joyce
Banda says.
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Many believe the election period will stall legal
proceedings and could allow individuals both
senior officials and lower level civil servants
involved in the scandal to escape the reach of
the law, while others may be shielded by
parliamentary immunity if they or their party
succeed in winning seats in parliament."Civil
society groups in Malawi are calling on the
government to walk the talk in the fight against
corruption, particularly since the release of the
forensic audit report the Cashgate scandal on
21 February.
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The report was commissioned by the Malawi
government and funded by the UK government, which
gave Malawi 117 million in 2012. The report
focused on the facts of the case and did not
identify any individual suspects. There should
be no impunity for those involved in stealing
from the state. The money should be used to help
reduce poverty in Malawi and to raise living
standards for all citizens.
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The British High Commissioner to Malawi, Michael
Nevin, insisted that naming people in the report
could compromise ongoing court cases, a position
challenged by civil society groups and the Public
Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament.The
scandal involves an estimated US20 million to
US100 million that has gone missing from
government coffers.
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It became news last year immediately after
Malawis budget director was shot under
circumstances that still remain a mystery, and
huge sums of cash in both local and foreign
currency were found in the vehicles and homes of
some civil servants, most of them low-ranking
junior accountants according to President Joyce
Banda. Foreign development donors pulled the
plug on US150 million for the 2013/14 fiscal
year, at least temporarily. Up to 40 per cent of
Malawis annual budget is donor-funded.
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This has angered citizens as public services,
particularly health and education, have been cut.
At the same time the pace of investigations
remains slow. There have reportedly been 68
arrests but few cases have gone to court.Funding
challenges continue to cripple the key
institutions tasked with building the case for
the prosecution, including the Anti-Corruption
Bureau, the Ministry of Justice and the
Judiciary. President Joyce Banda reshuffled her
cabinet, dismissing several ministers including
the ministers of finance and justice.
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Keywords Impunity, Scandals, Political
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