Kabambe condemns corrupt politicians
RESERVE Bank of Malawi (RBM) Governor, Dalitso Kabambe, has said that politicians who are masters of fraud and dubious payments are in for trouble as he intensifies the fight against corruption at the central bank.
He said this during the launch of a tip-offs anonymous system yesterday, when the institution partnered Deloitte, the Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Financial Intelligence Authority to fight fraud and corruption among workers of the bank.
Kabambe stressed that there is need to seal all loopholes to ensure that Malawi does not witness another Cashgate, which devastated the economy recently.
“We are coming from a dark period of Cashgate, and it was the worst. It was a tragedy for this nation and Cashgate has taken this nation backwards when all other countries in the region and beyond are progressing. As the country is progressing, we need to seal all the loopholes,” Kabambe said.
He said that the cheques that were used in Cashgate were RBM (government) cheques hence the need for the bank to take steps in ensuring that pilferage of any government resources never happens again.
“There are no politicians in the Reserve Bank of Malawi, case we are all professionals and what we are saying is that we have to do our work with integrity. If we do that, there is no way we would allow any dubious transactions to take place; either perpetrated by a politician, a business person or any person. They will never use RBM workers for such deals,” he said.
He further said the bank is working on introducing an SMS alert system that will notify all stakeholders including the Governor, the Finance Minister, the Secretary to the Treasury, line ministers and other officials in order for them to help trace dubious transactions and be able to stop them.
Implementers of the tip-offs anonymous system, Deloitte, emphasised the need to engage external partners in such initiatives stressing that some people would not be comfortable to report fraud to in-house structures.
ACB Director General, Lucas Kondowe, lauded RBM for the initiative, observing that people have often blamed the bureau when incidents occur, when the fight against corruption cannot be won by the ACB alone.
“The ACB is just a leading institution but we need all of us and all stakeholders to play their rightful role to see progress in the fight against corruption,” Kondowe said.
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