By Kondanani Chilkmunthaka
President Lazarus Chakwera has declared twenty weeks of campaign against corruption in the country, saying this will be a time to reset the moral tone of the nation.
Making his address as he launched a two-day Anti-Corruption National Conference at Mount Soche in Blantyre on Monday, July 25,2022, President Chakwera told the nation that the period between July 25 and December 1,2022 has been designated for vigorous campaign against corruption across Malawi in every sector.
He said: “We have designated twenty weeks between now and the International Anti-Corruption Day in December as a time to campaign against corruption across Malawi, a time to reset the moral tone of our nation through a special and intensified Anti-Corruption Campaign across the country.
And so from this conference, each stakeholder group must declare how they will participate in that fight using the platforms, resources, and opportunities that are uniquely at their disposal.”
Additionally, President Chakwera urged the participants to the conference to come up with new Anti-Corruption approach that brings all relevant institutions, duty-bearers, and office bearers together in safeguarding the sustainability of the fight beside their desired results that they are funded to produce.
Chakwera who started his speech by reminding Malawians about gross electoral corruption and fraud of 2019 that led to the country to go for Fresh Presidential polls in 2020, told the conference that he has called for the conference to renew his commitment to the pursuit of a new Malawi in which Malawians at all levels of the society play their unique role in the fight against corruption.
“Five righteous judges of the Constitutional Court unanimously ruled that 2019 presidential election had indeed been so corrupted as to render it Unconstitutional. And so three months and three days later, on the first Wednesday of May, I walked into this very same room, to present to Dr. Jane Ansah my nomination papers as presidential candidate for the Malawi Congress Party, with Dr. Chilima at my side as a running mate on account of the national coalition we had forged under the banner of the Tonse Alliance.
In my address on that occasion, to dozens of Malawians who had gathered in this room on that day, and hundreds of thousands who had filled every street from here to Ndirande, from Ndirande to Chichiri, from Chichiri to Limbe, from Limbe to Kanjedza, from Kanjedza to Naperi, and from Naperi to Mount Pleasant, and to millions more who were watching around the country, I declared on that occasion that it was our destiny and calling from God to change status quo of state corruption and fraud, and that no force on earth could stop our pursuit to that change.”
President Chakwera has since described the conference as a golden opportunity for Malawi to raise a level of public engagement issues of corruption which is a matter of national interest.
This conference is being conducted under the theme: Resetting the Nation’s Moral Tone”, and among the participants who made presentations to the conference were Ezilon Kasoka from ACB, Liness Chikankheni from the Ministry of Justice, and a renown world commentator Professor Patrick Lumumba who once served as the Director of the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission.
