Chakwera challenges Malawians not to lose hope, plot in graft fight

President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has challenged Malawians not to falter in their struggle against corruption, assuring that the country is on track towards eliminating graft.

Chakwera made the sentiments when he presided over the Anti-Corruption Symposium in Lilongwe on Thursday. The symposium coincided with the Silver Jubilee of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).

President Chakwera warned that allowing frustrations on corruption fight to turn into despair could drive citizens into self-pity and self-righteousness thereby defeating the pursuit for a corruption-free nation.

“It can make us feel lonely and abandoned. It can make us feel powerless and useless,” he said, adding: “I myself know these feelings all too well. From the helm of the government where I sit, it would be easy to believe that everyone in the public service is corrupt and to believe that everyone who is corrupt is beyond redemption.

“It would be easy for me to go all over the world and turn my own despair into a message that tells other nations how corrupt my country and its citizens are, and tell them that I am all alone in the fight against corruption. But in the face of such despair, what we need is for God to do for us what he did for Elijah, namely to grant us a true perspective that generates hope on our people’s desire and capacity for a corruption-free society.”

Chakwera said as the country celebrates the Silver Anniversary marking 25 years of ACB’s work, people need to also celebrate the progress the country has made.

He said there is a generation of thousands in every institution who are not corrupt and who are ready to take on the forces of corruption and that all they are waiting for is for the nation to enlist them and tell them how they can help in the creation of a new Malawi that is free from corruption.

“And because that army exists, we must choose to turn our frustrations into hope, the kind of hope that believes that our victory against corruption is within reach and inevitable. So let us keep up the good fight and let us keep growing our ranks by enlisting new fighters, for those who are with us are more than those who are against us,” he emphasized.