There’s something disconcerting about approaching a church, but suddenly smelling the strong immediately recognizable pungent of Cannabis.

It’s surprising because as the human brain processes what is considered by Christians as a holy or consecrated building, ordinarily your brain will then not immediately also associate that spectacle which your eyes can see, with the somewhat not-so-holy smell of ganja. At least not unless you are a Rastafarian.

The most obscene way of capturing this convolution of human stimuli, (and to just muddy the waters a little bit) is to make use of a made-up Chichewa proverb I came across recently that says:

Galu akatota, saganizira zokhwasula mafupa a nkhuku

Anyway, I digress. These days the above scented scenario is reality for me, because a church I sometimes walk past, happens to be on the other side of the road from a group of houses where someone (or something) is rather fond of the chamba herb, so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that worshippers within the church on Sunday mornings, solemn and faithful in their Hosannas, involuntarily ‘get high’ inhaling the secondary cannabis excreta exhaled by that herb-loving someone or something.

What a jolly good way to start the week eh?

Moving on swiftly, the purpose of this article, as you can see from the title (and to an extent the video above — in which the author talks more generally about Africa) is about how Malawi’s dizzying heights of Political power has become factories for manufacturing thieves.

In Malawi, the shady deals are happening in the face of that law about … declaration of assets (The Public Officers (Declaration of Assets, Liabilities and Business Interests) Act) which we were told would reduce the theft of state resources and curb corruption in the country and provide transparency and accountability, but which it appears no one bothers to enforce.

In 2023, in May, the Nation Newspaper reported that 7,000 public officials defaulted on asset declaration the past three years (as of that date). Interestingly, the newspaper said that it was the political class who had overwhelmingly complied with the law.

Here, one might want to ask whether any investigative journalists went ahead to review the data that is held by the Office of the Director of Public Officer’s Declarations (ODPOD), to see what has transpired in and since 2023, and to what extent senior civil servants have complied with their obligations under the Act?

A more interesting question is why officials were not complying with declaration of assets as the law requires them to, and why the authorities were not enforcing the law – when it wasn’t complied with, as they were expected to?

According to the Act, the penalties for non-compliance include up to two years imprisonment(criminal penalties) as well as civil penalties which include dismissal from public office, disqualification from holding future public office, and for elected officials, their seats being declared vacant and their banning from participating in subsequent elections. All reasonable and sensible enough.

These penalties were meant to apply to those who fail to declare their assets as required by the law. The point (obviously) was to ensure that there exists a robust enforcement mechanism intended to ensure compliance with the law.

But according to an earlier Times report, dated February 5th 2022, this enforcement mechanism continues to be toothless because not only are ministers and MPs not being taken to task about it, both the old Speaker of Parliament, and the present speaker does not appear to have done much to deal with MPs who didn’t comply. Some Legal experts say the Malawian constitution doesn’t presently have a specific vehicle for the Speaker of parliament to declare an MP’s seat vacant if they haven’t declared their assets within the stipulated 90 days, and that the process that exists still depends on Standing Order procedures.

Prosecutorial Powers

There has been accusations in the past that the law is unclear over who should exercise specific powers, particularly regarding disqualification from public office and investigating officials who fail to disclose assets or provide inaccurate information. Legal experts, including the Malawi Law Society, have pointed out that while Section 19 of the Act provides for these enforcement measures, it fails to specify the responsible authorities and procedures. The lack of prosecutorial powers of ODPOD has also been highlighted as a limitation, with suggestions that the office should automatically share verified declarations with enforcement agencies like the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Director of Public Prosecutions, police, and Financial Intelligence Authority.

Political interference has been cited as a major obstacle to effective enforcement, as are certain enforcement officials – who fear repercussions should they push too hard against those who have fallen foul of the Act, leading to calls for reviewing the Act to ensure more independent action by the ODPOD.

Amending the Law

There has been a push to amend the law, to clarify some of the above issues, and create a clear path for enforcement under the constitution, in particular including actions which the Speaker of Parliament can take.

Last year, The Special Law Commission on the Public Officers Declaration of Assets made several recommendations on the matter. They were designed to simplify and clarify the process of firing officials who failed to declare their assets, and among them were sanctions for third parties (e.g. family members of public officials who failed to comply), as well as amendments to Section 63(1)(f) of the Constitution that deals with circumstances under which an MP’s seat can be declared vacant. However, it appears that those recommendations are yet to be adopted and the Act / Constitution have not yet been amended.