PARLIAMENT OF MALAWI | Committee on Health

[00:00:01]Thank you >> through the chair Alexander representing the people of N central east specifically from senior chief Muangara senior chief Ghana and subta thank you good afternoon through your chair my name is right Alex mi representing people of mas conituency and I'm a member of this committee. Thank you.

[00:00:35]>> Good afternoon, chair.

[00:00:37]I'm Jeremiah Jumb MP for Grant Southeast Consuency.

[00:00:45]>> Uh good afternoon chair and the whole house. Uh my name is Kea Mulong Piri representing the people of Motam Koula constituents. Thank you.

[00:00:58]Uh good afternoon chair through you. My name is Kenda representing the people of Zimba conu. Thank you >> chair. Afternoon. My name is McKenzamoto representing the people of Kab North and I'm a member of this committee. Thank you >> chair. Good afternoon. I am Robin Kanyama MP for Mango West. Thank you.

[00:01:28]>> Good afternoon chair. My name is Arura from Dutu.

[00:01:38]Good afternoon honorable chairperson.

[00:01:41]My name is Chance Montali coming from the people of Chidiba South constituency.

[00:01:51]>> Good afternoon. My name is Moren Jundo.

[00:01:54]I represent the people of Monza West constituency and I'm the vice chairperson for this committee. Thank you.

[00:02:01]>> Good afternoon. I'm Enliamentary Secretariat.

[00:02:06]>> Good afternoon. I'm Judith Mara, parliamentary secretariat.

[00:02:12]>> Thank you very much. And my name is Anthony Masamba, chairperson, parliamentary committee on health. At this juncture, may I humbly the stakeholder to introduce themselves, please.

[00:02:28]>> Thank you, chair and honorable members of the committee. Good afternoon.

[00:02:34]My name is Gabrielle Chambi, acting director general and corruption bureau.

[00:02:39]Thank you.

[00:02:43]>> Good afternoon, chair and the whole committee. My name is Susan Perry, acting director for corruption prevention in the SCB.

[00:02:52]>> Good afternoon, chair um Jimmy Mashia, acting chief corruption prevention officer in the ant corruption bureau.

[00:03:00]Thank you.

[00:03:03]>> Thank you very much our stakeholder and welcome to parliament and in particular parliamentary committee on health. This is a continued engagement with various stakeholders and uh this afternoon we are engaging with you specifically on the state of corruption in the health facilities. We want to hear from you if you ever ever uh been engaged on these issues um uh corrupt practices taking place in our health facilities.

[00:03:36]would like to ask you just to focus on the pressure points. Uh I know and this committee acknowledges the fact that there are several um issues taking place out there uh in the health sector. But this investigation is focusing primarily on uh corrupt practices taking place in the health facility. It is for this reason therefore that we ask that you need to focus much pay much attention to that topic. Thank you very much and I hand over to you for a presentation.

[00:04:10]Thank you.

[00:04:13]>> Thank you very much chair and all members of the committee.

[00:04:18]Uh I would like to thank you for providing the SCB this opportunity to interact with you.

[00:04:26]As ACB uh one of our duties is to ensure that there's no corruption in the public hospitals and largely we make sure that that duty is done through our two departments corruption prevention department which focuses on systems in the public hospitals to ensure that the systems are not conducive for corrupt practices.

[00:04:55]Um then uh we have law enforcement aspect where we investigate corrupt practices and prosecute uh cases of corrupt practices in the public hospitals.

[00:05:12]So we we had provided a presentation which we had shared with the the committee and as you have said uh honorable chair uh we will focus on corrupt practices taking place in public hospitals.

[00:05:32]Um however as a matter of background um uh our presentation uh first of all starts by discussing the impact um the impact of the corrupt practices that are taking place in the public hospitals.

[00:05:52]Um so in terms of impact there are several areas that probably um you must as a committee know and these are based on research they are based on evidence.

[00:06:07]Um uh most of the issues would not be new to you obviously. So the first impact is is that corrupt practices in public hospitals uh lead to loss of essential medicines and supplies.

[00:06:24]Um we have also noticed that the corrupt practices in public hospitals are resulting in increased cost of health care. Um basically uh patients are being forced to make an official payments to access health care and that is resulting in lack of resources which are supposed to go to the public hospitals.

[00:06:50]Um, another another impact that we noticed was reduced trust in public institutions.

[00:07:04]Uh, so much so that most people who go to public hospitals go there because they have no choice.

[00:07:12]Yeah. But for those of us who have a choice to go elsewhere, uh very few of us trust public hospitals.

[00:07:23]Um maybe you go to public hospitals as a matter of last resort.

[00:07:29]Um now that's the some of the areas uh which we noticed that uh corruption or corrupt practices are causing the negative impact in the public hospitals.

[00:07:45]Um the second aspect of the presentation is the major corruption risk areas.

[00:07:53]Yeah we had also identified major corruption risk areas. So the first one the first risk area um is informal payments and patient exploitation.

[00:08:07]So here we found that patients in public health facilities um are ex face extortion. So basically it's not only patients and even guardians they are exploited uh in that they are forced to make informal payments um to to healthcare officers.

[00:08:31]Um the second risk area is what we we had referred to as supply chain corruption.

[00:08:40]um supply chain corruption. Uh this is a a challenge that is driving severe drug shortages uh in hospitals.

[00:08:51]Uh so we noticed we noted that medicines um or most medicines are lost to illicit pharmaceutical markets. uh there is diversion of medical resources to elicit pharmaceutical uh markets. This is uh has resulted in supply chain uh consequences. So that's what we are referring to as supply chain um uh corruption. The third risk area in public hospital in public hospitals is bribery in recruitment.

[00:09:34]Um bribery and recruitment is a very big challenge in public hospitals.

[00:09:41]Uh here corrupt practice involve district council officials who normally demand bribes from candidates in order to um to recruit them mostly as HSAs and and all those smaller uh positions.

[00:10:02]Um another risk area is drug beverage.

[00:10:09]So according to assessment almost 35% of drugs are lost from the time the drugs leave the sent to medical stores to reach the health facility. So by the time the the drugs are reaching the health facility 35% so only only 65% of the drugs reach the health facility. Um now at the health facility itself there is also theft of drugs. So at the end of the day um the actual uh drugs that go towards assisting patients uh is is is probably 50%. There hasn't been an investigation of the drugs that are lost from the health center maybe to the pharmacy at the health facility but from the central medical stores to the health facility 35% of drugs are already diverted uh to informal markets.

[00:11:16]Um another problem that we also noticed uh as a risk area uh is a problem of ghost workers. Uh there are a lot of ghost workers or unqualified or unlicensed individuals uh that are that work that appear to work at the public hospitals. These are what we call doadobas.

[00:11:40]Uh and some of them um find themselves in the in the final deployment list. So, so these ghost ghost ghost workers some of them are even deployed to conduct some uh health work maybe whenever there is need to deploy some officers maybe from district to the to the to the health centers.

[00:12:11]Another risk area is what we refer to as service delivery neglect. Service delivery neglect. Um this is where public health workers who also hold or operate private clinics uh opt to spend much of their time at the private clinics leaving their core duty uh core duties at the public uh hospitals. So this is also a a very big problem.

[00:12:45]Uh another risk area is deteriorated health outcomes.

[00:12:50]deteriorated health outcomes. Um uh what this means is the service delivery in public hospitals um has derated a lot.

[00:13:04]Uh now public hospitals most of them are becoming uh not places where you can go and get a healing but are becoming health traps. you just go for the sake of going so that people should at least say but uh there's a lot of deterioration in public hospitals.

[00:13:33]Um so these are the main risk areas that we had pointed out.

[00:13:41]There are more from our our presentation.

[00:13:47]Now uh in terms of the actual cases on the ground um as of now the anti-corruption bureau has 28 cases at investigations and the prosecution level. These are the cases relating to um corruption or corrupt practices within the uh the public health system. Uh just 30 seconds. I should open the folder for that because it was not part of the the presentation. So because uh it wasn't part of the presentation for privacy reasons uh but I will just give you a a picture of the kind of cases uh relating related to corruption in in in public hospitals.

[00:14:58]Um for example uh case number one uh a dental therapist um at the Kamo Central Hospital demanded 50,000 uh in order to assist a patient and this was just an in he wasn't even a a full employee.

[00:15:28]um he was convicted uh and sentenced to 2 years imprisonment uh but suspended for 3 years. So we managed to secure a conviction um on a a corrupt practice by a dental therapist who had demanded who had solicited 50,000 to assist a patient.

[00:15:52]This happened in 2025 just last year.

[00:15:57]We also have another case uh where again a dental practitioner at Cam Hospital demanded and received 18,720 uh for a tooth extraction service. Uh this one we concluded the investigations and the matter is coming for prosecution soon.

[00:16:22]Um, another case happened at Guira uh where two employees are being alleged of charging 30,000 quer to to patients requiring operational treatment.

[00:16:38]Um, these cases are in court. We have finished parading our witnesses and the the two officers were found with case to answer. What it means is they are now going into a phase where they are supposed to defend themselves.

[00:16:56]Um I'll refer to another case. This is a case where a matron um demanded 200,000 from hospital attendance uh so that they are assigned to so that they are assigned to work as drivers.

[00:17:18]So hospital attendance wanted to to kind of to be upgraded to drivers. So there was a matron who was demanding 200,000 for that purpose. That case investigations are also concluded and we are waiting for um to take the cases the case to court.

[00:17:40]uh you can see that the figures uh are slightly increasing from 30,000s uh 18,000 200,000 we have one year for 1.5 million um this is a case where two people who work as who work at the radiology section at Queens that's Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital demanded 1.5 million from a recruitment ment agency um uh in order to produce medical reports for 22 members of the recruitment agency. So people were supposed to be recruited and then there were supposed to be medical reports as part of the recruitment exercise. So these people provided fake medical reports uh for purposes of the recruitment and demanded and received 1.5 million for that exercise. That one we have also finished the investigations and the case is going to uh to to be prosecuted very soon. So uh I just wanted to to give you a a highlight of the count of the kind of um cases relating to corrupt practices that are happening uh in the public hospitals which as SCB uh we are investigating uh prosecuting and uh for some of them we have even secured conviction.

[00:19:27]Back to the presentation, apart from investigating and prosecuting cases, uh I had said that as SCB we have a corruption prevention department uh which is headed by her and uh some of the issues which we do through that department are as follows.

[00:19:49]One is institutional capacity building.

[00:19:53]Here as ACB we have ensured you know um under the national and corruption strategy too uh it's a requirement that every public institution should have institutional integrity committee. So uh as a priority we have ensured that every public hospital has got an institutional integrity committee and we have built we have strengthened capacity to these institutional integrity committees so that they should be able to conduct corrupt risk assessments and incate cultures of integrity to the members of public hospitals so that issues or incidences of corruption are reduced.

[00:20:40]Um the second preventive measure that we have undertaken or that we undertake as SCB is oversight over recruitment. So the SCB uh time and again intervenes to ensure that the hiring within the ministry of health is merit based. uh for instance the bureau previously has halted the national recruitment for the HSAs.

[00:21:10]The other intervention that we have undertaken uh is mobile clinics and public forums.

[00:21:20]Here is where we conduct sensitizations in districts.

[00:21:25]um sensitizations campaign sensitization campaigns uh to educate citizens on the legal procedures for accessing health services.

[00:21:37]Um another intervention is giving outright advice uh to hospitals on what to do to ensure that cases of corruption are reduced. Uh recently we issued an advice to to the uh the main hospitals the referral hospitals uh pretty much to all hospitals on some of the measures that they should be undertaking. Uh it was in the papers maybe some of you honorable members were able to to see that press release uh where we recommended a lot of uh activities to be done. One of the activities was to to to ensure that all public health care workers have got name tags. We we we recommended that that all public health care workers should have name tags. This was done to reduce um the incidences of nobas.

[00:22:40]We also recommended that all public health care workers should be in uniforms. Even those who don't undertake the actual work so that everyone who is not in uniform cannot come and pretend to provide uh public health care services.

[00:22:59]Um we also recommended through that press release that there should be a a a duty roster publicly displayed of people working on that particular day so that patients can go and look at the duty roster and know that the people who are working at this hospital this particular time are this and that so that if they meet someone they can challenge them to say no I I don't think you are a a public worker a a a health worker here.

[00:23:30]Uh another advice which we also uh gave to public hospitals was to ensure that there is uh strengthened um supervision of um the pharmacy departments. Um, and maybe we we we we we h we wouldn't go as far as CCTVs and and and stuff like that cuz it's something that may not be readily a available. But if readily available, the CCTVs at pharmacy uh sections would be ideal. But uh in the absence of that we recommended that there should be very uh strict security measures including searches of all workers uh working in inarmacies.

[00:24:29]I'm glad to to report that some of these measures are being adhered to uh by the uh public hospitals and uh that's where I am going to to end my presentation and refer you to uh one of my colleagues so that he can just give you an indication of how the measures that we recommend ended as SCB are being adhered to by the uh public hospitals.

[00:25:06]Uh at this juncture, let me refer you honorable members and chair to Mr. Antavia. Thank you very much.

[00:25:14]>> Thank you. And you have 5 minutes.

[00:25:18]>> Thank you so much uh chair. Indeed, after um that press release um we noted that um Queen Elizabeth, Zumba Central, Kamo Central and Central Hospital, they have responded very positively.

[00:25:38]Um they have got institutional integrity committees uh in press. Some of them have gone um ahead to do risk mapping.

[00:25:49]So they've done risk mapping of all surface points and some of them they have put in place reporting mechanisms.

[00:25:58]uh for instance Kamo central Zomba central they have got mobile number to which people can report and they have received some complaints ranging four to six to eight uh based on the facility and they have investigated some of them are under their investigation.

[00:26:19]So as SCB we have provided desk officers to these institutional integrity committees and we are building uh their capacity most of the things as the DG has alluded to um that are being abided to uh by these uh committees. So there are positive strides. For example, at Muzo Central Hospital, they have installed CCTV cameras uh OPD and then the pharmacy and they're able to check how movements are being done particular issues of drugs. Um so there is those interesting stories in terms of prevention um uh of corruption. So in brief chair that's what I can say as anti-corruption bureau shortly we be going on the ground particularly for district hospitals where they don't have institutional integrity committees at press. So there is the institutional integity committee at district level. So stumo will go through the district commissioner use his institutional integrity committee because there is a member of the one of the member of the institutional integrity committee is from the hospital and through that with ACB we are going to work uh to do risk mapping for each and every district council and based on that risk register we are going to agree that they should start implementing and maybe quarterly ACB going around uh to monitor I if those mitigation measures are making our impact. Why we are doing this is because we want hospitals and district council to take ownership in the fight against corruption. They can handle small small things while big cases are being referred to the anti-corruption bureau for thorough investigation and criminal charges.

[00:28:12]Thank you so much chair.

[00:28:14]>> Thank you very much and uh thank you very much DJI for the presentation. So 35% of all the medicines are lost between central medical stores and uh the pharmacy. That's according to the ACB here. And then they also handling 28 cases so far of the corruption or corrupt practices. Honorable members time for plary questions, observations and comments.

[00:28:47]We start with Dan Pudu.

[00:28:50]Then we go to Blanta Southeast. From Blant Southeast, we go to the people of Kataba the North. And then we finish off this round with the people of Mango West. In that order, please.

[00:29:07]>> Thank you, chair. Um just a a question uh especially relating to uh uh legal law law reforms. Um your slide says uh parliamental oversight and legislative support remain essential.

[00:29:30]Uh if the committee were to ask you to be specific in terms what law or what laws would you want parliament to pass this session that would let you to enforce systems not just investigate after theft because I understand your your your recommendations and position you are bringing in u uh that you are bringing in the issue to deal with systems not just to arrest.

[00:30:08]So what what would you be what would you bring forward as a specific an item a specific specific item for the committee to pass through parliament as laws that will help you to be uh to be to be seen as um to be seen as uh uh I'm looking for a good word uh to be seen as an institution that that's that that's that just that is not just waiting for theft but you would want the preventation the prevention to happen before the theft. I hope I'm clear >> very clear the people of so the key points what should the what are the key points this committee should take forward uh is it something to do with legislative processes that this committee can advance in the national assembly we have the direct of uh prevention here from the ACB I think uh that falls directly under your jurisdiction in ACB we go to the people of southeast Thank you chair. Looking at the presentation by the anti-corruption bureau where uh the director here is saying that 35% of the drugs are going to private hands not going to the public public hospitals.

[00:31:41]Uh the the percentage itself is alarming. So I'm I'm looking at you as a director of ACB. uh what what measures are you doing? Because if you look at the drugs coming from the um the national stores and going to the hospitals and we are losing about 35% and looking at the country which depends on the global fund or other donors to help us to buy these drugs from outside.

[00:32:11]This is very alarming. So um what is it that we can convince the donors that we are here as Malawians and we are here to protect the interest of the donors. Thank you.

[00:32:22]>> Thank you very much the people of Grand Southeast. So 35% gone to private institutions, private pharmacies and you are telling this community that this is based on an investigation or research. who did the research and uh these cases that you have highlighted here are you um are they coming from the the investigation or coming from the 35% drug roles to pharmacies we go to Ben North the people of Ben North constituency please >> thank you chair yeah my question based from the presentation which was made by uh m of health this morning they are all they are all putting blame on SB that uh you are taking too much time to conclude the cases uh why is it so and what's your problem on your side thank you thank you very much uh we go to the people of Mango West from there we go to Da West uh Thank you chair for the opportunity uh and the people of Mango West appreciate the presentation and the honesty of the director to acknowledge that there is indeed corruption taking place in H sector and the 28 cases are under investigation and others are being prosecuted and convicted.

[00:34:03]But the 28 cases which are here are the ones which are under investigations.

[00:34:08]But this committee want to appreciate how deep this issue is in our health sector. Can the bill try to give the statistics on average? How many cases does the bill hold about these issues about our corruptions in our health sector? may be in a financial year. So that the bill uh the committee need to appreciate about that. Number two, chair. Uh on 15th February this year, the consortium of investigative journalist had to publish a story titled uh pay up or die that exposes some of the mractices that are taking place in our major hospitals here in Malawi. I would like to know as a director or any other uh workmate within the bureau have seen that story or if it has become to their attention and if so what have they done as a bureau to to to attend to this particular issues which has been already exposed by the um this consortium of journalism.

[00:35:28]Thank you chair. Thank you very much uh the people of Mango West. Indeed that was very alarming story. Pay up or die.

[00:35:36]A story published by various media organizations and the consortium that might have motivated you or you know steed you to do something about the corrupt practices taking place in our healthy facilities. I know as a bureau you you act based on evidence but I believe these are some of the issues that the bureau might have uh uh uh had interest in just to find out to what extent these issues practic practices are taking place in our health facilities. The people of Da West.

[00:36:17]>> Thank you chair. Uh my question goes to director of ant and corruption bureau through your report.

[00:36:28]It shows corruption affects vulnerable citizens forcing them to pay for services meant to be free. How can parliament support reforms that guaranteed transparency?

[00:36:45]For example, mandatora the public display for free services and medicine availability to reboot trust and protect the most vulnerable. I submit.

[00:36:59]>> Thank you very much. We go to the people of Zimbasola.

[00:37:10]>> Thank you, chair.

[00:37:12]Uh I would like to know from SB uh the past presenters they have been thinking that to end these corruptions and other steps um activities in um in hospitals.

[00:37:38]they should maybe introduce uh tags and uniforms.

[00:37:44]Uh do you think this is the best way to deal with thieves? Maybe is there any other solution because thieves can do all this? Thank you.

[00:38:04]>> Thank you very much. Over to you ACB uh this round. These are the questions that we have before we go back for further questions. Over to Director General.

[00:38:17]Thank you very much chair and thank you honorable members for your questions.

[00:38:23]Uh I will take some of the questions and some of the questions will be taken uh up by my technical colleagues.

[00:38:34]Um the first question was from Dau is it?

[00:38:40]>> Yes. Um your question honorable member was like was what laws uh can parliament pass uh to assist in cing um corruption in public hospitals?

[00:38:59]Um what specific um interventions uh can parliament uh pass uh legislatively? Uh there are several uh interventions that as parliament or as this committee you can recommend.

[00:39:18]Um one of the one of of them is um conflict of interest legislation.

[00:39:25]That is something that you should consider.

[00:39:28]uh whereby we are saying probably as parliament you can consider enacting legislation that prohibits public health workers from running private uh hospitals.

[00:39:44]Uh that is I know there is a directive which was challenged in court but as as parliament that remained a directive. It wasn't a law. maybe that can be considered.

[00:40:00]Uh it can be amended to suit particulars but generally that's a mechanism that can be considered.

[00:40:08]Um the second uh intervention can be whistleblower whistleblower protection.

[00:40:17]uh generally the biggest problem we have is that people are afraid to report incidences of corruption because they are afraid of the repercussions.

[00:40:29]So as SCB generally we don't have a vibrant whistleblower protection law and that has affected our work not only with respect to public healthare systems but generally this has for a long time been uh at the uh law commission. uh they've been uh reviewing the whistleblower protection law trying to put guidelines and and and all but it has taken a while. So uh as this committee may be, you may come in to push for enactment of whistleblower protection laws so that people are able to report theft to report corruption in public um uh hospitals without fear of repercussions.

[00:41:24]Um another intervention is um uh so in our presentation we have made some recommendations.

[00:41:36]Uh these recommendations can also be taken on board by this committee by this committee and be converted into legislative uh interventions.

[00:41:49]Uh so we are talking of digitization of health systems.

[00:41:54]Uh we are talking of electronic payments.

[00:41:58]Um we are talking of strengthening medicine and supply chain uh management.

[00:42:05]So these laws may not necessarily be under SCB's uh legal instruments but they may be under the legal instruments governing the central or district hospitals uh or generally under the legal instruments governing uh the ministry of health. uh these are some of the interventions that this committee might consider.

[00:42:37]Yes, please.

[00:42:41]Uh thank you chair and the committee. Uh just to add on what the DG has said, I would also uh like the committee to help in the amendment of the coral practices act. I think it has been hanging for a long time and we have made some recommendations to be considered in the new coral practices act. One of such recommendations is to include the institutional integrity committees in in the law. At the moment these institutional integrity committees are vibrant, yes, but sometimes they like teeth because they are not in the law.

[00:43:24]They are in the strategy. But if they are in the law, I think these institutions can be given teeth to do I think more than what they are doing now.

[00:43:35]So I think that is in addition to what has been said uh it will be it will go a long way to support the implementation of the interventions that are being done by the institutional integrity committees. Thank you.

[00:43:49]>> Thank you very much.

[00:43:52]>> Thank you. Uh there was a question from honorable member or from Blant Southeast.

[00:44:00]The question was what measures are we doing as SCB to c the 35% uh drug prefetch from the central medical stores to the hospitals and um who who who did the research uh on the 35% I think that was an extension by the honorable chair uh in our presentation We have indicated the preventing preventive measures that we are undertaking. So ACB is basically two aspects preventive measures and preventive measures are done by the department of corruption prevention and public education. Then we have law enforcement. Law enforcement measures are done by the department of investigation and department of prosecution. So the investigations and the prosecutions that I have referred to uh constitute some of the measures we are undertaking to assist in this problem. Uh the other measures are on the preventive um on the preventive aspect uh of the coin.

[00:45:16]uh here it's it's now in relation to the the issue she has raised of the institutional integrity committees because institutional integrity committees are there as the first gatekeepers are there as the first defenders of corruption. So when corruption happens within the institution, the institutional integrity committees should be the first ones to take charge of the inst of the of the problem before the issue even goes to SCB. They should be able to identify the problem. They should be able to investigate the problem. That's why in our presentation we have under we have stated that one of the activities we are undertaking as a preventive measure is to strengthen the institutional integrity committees and we have also highlighted a lot of uh the the mechanis the measures that uh Mr. Santia had uh had emphasized on uh which the various hospitals have started adhere adhering to like issue of CCTVs in inarmacies and and all those other measures but also this is not only an SCB's matter because if we are losing drugs from the central medical stores to the to the hospitals this is Not only corruption, it is it is also pure theft and that is now within the jurisdiction of the police. Which means when you're looking at the interventions, honorable members, you also have to look at the roles of the of the police.

[00:47:03]um the 35% um there is um a report which is entitled governance structure to reduce drug privilege in Malawi. So this report was issued by the office of the president and cabinet. Uh that is where the 35% uh estimate was obtained.

[00:47:35]Uh there was another question from honorable member from Katab Bay.

[00:47:43]Before you come up with your uh supplementary, I'll let the DJ respond to the question from Kata Ben.

[00:47:54]>> Thank you chair. Uh Katab North had a question about an allegation made by the uh members who had appeared earlier than us that uh cases are taking long to be investigated or to be concluded by by SCB.

[00:48:20]uh it's it's very easy to to blame ACB for for everything uh and that is coming from um the background where we feel or where people feel that the fight against corruption is SCBs alone.

[00:48:42]So obviously most of the times people as SCB what are you doing? As SCB what are you be doing? But the biggest question should be what are we doing?

[00:48:55]That is why in this the spirit of the national and corruption strategy too which is the strategy that we are using now. Um the spirit of that strategy is a holistic approach in the fight against corruption and the national and corruption strategy too put 12 pillars 12 sectors to assist in the fight against corruption. The legislature is there the media is there. So uh the fight against corruption must start from the institution. That's why we have put institutional integrity committees even in the public hospitals. So the fact that there is corruption in the public hospitals which as SCB we are picking up and investigating and prosecuting means the hospitals themselves the the institutional integrities instit the institutional integrity committees themselves are failing to do their work to prevent the corruption. So they can't entirely uh blame SCB uh because as SCB we are also looking at ve several sectors we are not only looking at public sector we are not only looking at public hospitals so since there are several sectors we are looking at there is there is bound to be some gaps when we are servicing the public hospitals but um there are several problems at SCB as well that are outside our our control that may indeed result in delays and some of the problems include uh poor or delayed funding uh that affect our work plans and also when the cases go to court. Um at that point in most of the times we lose control because there's ourselves prosecuting the case there are lawyers on the other side then there's a court.

[00:50:59]So the court sometimes have also their own um their their other cases adjudments and so on. So this would explain why uh there would be delays in in in in investigations or prosecutions of the case. But the main focus now is the systems the corruption prevention so that we should as much as possible reduce corrupt practices so that in the end we reduce the cases that are under investigations and prosecution.

[00:51:32]>> Thank you. Supplementary ben southeast. Yeah, I think from what I want to ask, I think partly he has answered but uh I just have to answer to ask maybe you you extend it to another level. Um I'm looking at the same 35% but um we have drugs Malawi drugs being caught at bait bridge about one one billion runs worth of drugs coming from Malawi. So I'm looking at both sides where you have targeted yes the hospitals as a nation you have come here in the parliamentary committee um maybe there are ways and means where you can help us as a parliamentary because as a parliamentary committee we are own members of parliament we we we don't do investig investigations on the ground but we we think that as ACB maybe you advise us where or how can we tackle this that we can stop this privilege where we have about 1 billion runs of drugs going outside the country.

[00:52:50]>> Thank you very much. Do you have uh other questions?

[00:53:00]>> There are other questions which are not yet been answered. Okay.

[00:53:03]>> Yes.

[00:53:09]Yeah, my colleague will take the supplementary before we proceed to respond to the other questions. Thank you.

[00:53:18]>> Thank you TG and thank you chair. Um yes um the the the pro the problem can be tackled by different stakeholders and uh just to comment that as the DG said we work with different stakeholders and we there are different networks that can help in the fight against corruption not only looking at the corruption in the head sector but also we target corruption in the borders as well we've got crossborder network that we work with with the different stakeholders including the Malawi Bureau of Standards, MRI, Malawi Police. So all these stakeholders coming together uh we can also tackle such corruption like looking at how are our goods passing through the borders because there's also issues to do with the um poorest borders which is also a corruption issue. So as we are looking at the issues within Malawi, we also go beyond into looking at issues that are affecting Malawi beyond the borders. And that requires us collaborating with a lot of stakeholders which in the spirit of the national anti-corruption strategy tool that's why we have all those pillars that come together work together to make sure that we don't have such issues as the incident that you have mentioned. I think we saw it in in the media. It's really unfortunate. Uh but it means that this problem requires more stakeholders than what we can uh even uh talk about here. Yeah.

[00:55:00]>> Thank you. Maybe addition more Mr. Antia.

[00:55:06]>> Thank you chair uh uh for for giving me.

[00:55:10]I wanted just to add um to the supplementary uh question the issue of drugs going outside the country.

[00:55:20]Um if you remember in those days our drugs were written MG MG property these days central medical stores the the way it says the drugs is is almost the same as any other pharmaceutical.

[00:55:38]So the drugs from government where they they move is difficult to to track them because they lack that property issue.

[00:55:47]So maybe that that's where the the parliament can also come in. We we need to go back um as a country. Let our drugs have proper identification uh features so that when they go through the border someone know this is Mai government uh property. we can easily track our drugs otherwise uh we keep talking this story yes we try prevention but but we don't have much sephogs uh on our our drugs thank you >> thank you very much DG >> yeah thank you uh just to emphasize that that problem requires a mistake holder approach because we doing of 1 billion uh run medicines at B bridge. Now, how did this medicine travel from Malawi are police doing their work properly? We have road blocks almost every kilometer.

[00:56:50]How did they find themselves on the border? Immigration.

[00:56:56]So, so these are mistakeholders that are supposed to be also involved. Uh just as an addition to what my colleagues are saying, um there was a question from Mango West. I think uh the question was how many cases do we have in a financial year relating to corruption in public hospitals? Uh I must say we we don't have specific statistics for that. uh but we we we it's a work that we we might have to to check and provide the statistics but we don't have specific statistic for that.

[00:57:37]Uh as you aware we do uh cases uh in everything corruption in everything. So uh it's difficult to have specific statistic unless we sit down and and look at at that. But currently uh the main point is we have 28 cases uh uh which are active.

[00:58:01]Um the story on um from the investigator or PHPIG um that was a very sad story and it was picked up um not only by SCB but by the Ministry of Health and uh one of the things we did was to establish a committee uh to look at not only that story but all the issues uh that happen in public hospitals and this was initiated by the minister of health herself when she had also in the visited camuzu central hospital so currently there is a committee uh made up of u um the ministry of health um there is a PS of health Dr. uh America uh myself um then there's also umbsman uh uh Mrs. Mrs. Grace Mara we have that committee uh the reason we co-opted the ombbudsman is that the ombbudsman has also been very active in trying to assist in cing corruption in public hospitals. I hope you have heard about the hospitalsman.

[00:59:26]Yes. Uh so that has been one of the biggest interventions as well which uh has been helping us as SCB. So we have this committee to look into into this issue and uh I I I I should say that um at an appropriate time this committee is going to come up with uh its recommendations on the on how best to to handle um the issues that were raised in that uh report and generally the issues of corruption in public hospitals. Uh in addition to that as SCB we also undertook our own interventions uh by issuing that press release and by making the follow-ups that we are making as indicated in the presentation.

[01:00:27]Um I think the the last question okay that's but one was from honorable member from lower west uh how can parliament support mechanisms to protect the most vulnerable uh I probably this I have I think I have already handled it when we were trying to discuss what interventions uh can parliament make and but there's an addition and maybe you can also take the question from member from Zimba I think the question was do we think tags and uniforms are most effective ways I yeah so you can take that >> thank you so much DG u what we have discovered over the years is that corruption thrives where there's uh information asymmetry or or lack of information. So transparency is one of the uh keys in cing corruption. So what we we encourage most institutions or service providing institutions is that they need to display service charters.

[01:01:44]So a service charter will contain all the services that are available at that particular station and how much or if there is a fee attached to it and if the service is free. So that gives the service seeker power to hold a duty bearer accountable. So that's that is one of the issues that would want maybe parliament also to uh to to assist in making sure that these institutions comply to displaying these uh client service charters and in the same vein um the issues of uniforms and tags they do help. We have seen even at at road traffic where It is encouraged that you don't use somebody who is not in uniform. If you are using someone who is not in uniform, that is you are choosing to to to use a duba. So the uniforms they go a long way because if somebody chooses to use somebody who is not in uniform, that means that they have chosen. But if somebody is in uniform, they're also mindful of their actions because they know that I have a name tag here.

[01:03:06]Someone will record me who record that I I met an officer by the name of Jim was the one who was uh helping me. So it it helps a lot in ensuring accountability in the services that uh people are seeking in these public institutions.

[01:03:24]Thank you. Thank you very much. Jipa North and then from Jipa North we are going to uh the people of Shiao Central East. From Shia Central East we go to Manza West. Then we finish off with uh Mula. Thank you very much.

[01:03:46]>> Uh thank you very much chair for granting the people of Chipa North conu to ask one question.

[01:03:53]Uh Bonad DJ thank you so much for your presentation.

[01:03:57]In your presentation you highlighted very well on issues of bribery uh in recruitment processes, neotism, ghost workers where we even head that somewhere someone had to pay 200,000 just to he wanted a job as a driver meaning corruption is still there in recruitment processes. How do these systemic human resource weaknesses perpetuate corruption and what reforms are needed so that we can restore the merit hiring based so that someone should be employed because it deserves that. Thank you very much chair. I submit.

[01:04:43]>> Thank you very much. We go to the people of uh Manza West.

[01:04:50]Thank you chair.

[01:04:52]Um, what uh the people of Moza West need and I believe the entire Malawians is an action and not just stories.

[01:05:07]SB has always been there. We have been always hearing of corruption and uh with the pace that you're taking Bad G, do you see Malawi as a Mala as a corruption free nation? Because in your explanation uh you said you have uh an accumulation of unresolved cases and one of the reason you gave was because you are not just saving um public health sector but also other departments and with that base are you trying to tell the community that we should still wait for more years so that these cases should be resolved or are you trying to tell us that you are lacking enough manpower to resolve these cases. Uh and in your in your explanation you said that uh you are working hand in hand with the police and one of the things that came out during the interface with the Zuzu central hospital. They also said uh they said there's lack of coordination between hospital and uh hospital management and policy. And from the way that uh I've been following our conversation, um I'm also pretty sure there's that lack of coordination between USB uh police as well as the hospital management because I'll give an example of the Zuzu uh Kamuzu central hospital case. Somebody admits that yes, I paid 90,000.

[01:06:47]Uh there are two sides, two faces to corruption either criminal side or professional side. Professionally they did their investigations and that case was dismissed. But well there's that uh criminal side that needs to be dealt with because now maybe the reason why we are seeing uh a decrease in whistleblowers is because those who have been caught uh during uh during corruption there hasn't been any action that is being taken on them. So people now are saying even if I report what changes are are they going to be there? uh issues of corruption are serious and we have seen even the the minister of health herself has taken it uh head on to end this but then you are you are saying that you're not just saving the health sector because everyone needs to do uh his or her bad you do your bad as SB the hospital needs to do their part but what people need are actions are changes because as long As these people are there, people are still going to die because by the end of the day who those who are suffering are those who have who don't have any money to pay. Those who have money to pay uh fine and good but somebody who is refusing to pay we are putting their lives at risk even losing their lives.

[01:08:14]So what are you telling us?

[01:08:18]>> Right. Thank you very much. So the question is the delays, the action and the delays. That's uh your question DG and your team. We go to the people of uh uh so you'll be the last one. So let let me give the opportunity to the people of uh uh uh so that uh the people of Central East should finish because you at least you also give uh some uh tips and uh guidance on how SCB can you know tackle these issues. the people of God.

[01:08:58]>> Uh thank you so much here and good afternoon to everyone in here. Um mine is not necessarily a question but uh rather a concern.

[01:09:10]A concern is not very different from what the last speaker uh lamented.

[01:09:16]Um your answer is uh it's it's it's so alarming when you say no. You should not put all the pressure on us because we are not just looking at one thing. We are also looking at other things. For me you don't have to ask us so many questions because you are not the only people that we are looking up or we are helping. But today our meeting is between you and us and the topic is between uh we the committee and you. So we wanted to be answered as us as as this committee. Uh so that answer to me in so what next are we going to say because whatever we say we have already been told that no you are not the only person that you are not the only uh um people that we are dealing institution that we are dealing with. But uh the PS the the uh the previous meeting we had he mentioned that globally health is regarded as one of the areas where potential areas for uh corruption.

[01:10:34]So being a healthy committee, the only healthy committee in Malawi and we are being told that no, you are not the only people that we are we we need we need that the only people that we are serving.

[01:10:47]Uh that for me was was fearsome.

[01:10:55]Um I think I think that was the only concern but I think the the rest that I wanted to say have already been said.

[01:11:04]Thank the people of Central East would like also to echo that concern. It's a big one from uh the wise people of Central East. A big concern that we have raised the people there also cement the concern. Over to you the people of Central East.

[01:11:23]>> Thank you very much.

[01:11:25]Honorable chair for recognizing the people of Central East.

[01:11:30]Mine is a concern.

[01:11:34]I've heard the director saying that about 35% of the drugs which are fed from the main uh center to the hospital about 35% is historian.

[01:11:52]uh if you testify your investigations you also discover that about 15 to 20% of those drugs they even cross the borders out outside the country for example uh I was one time in Dalam there's a certain city called kalo if you go there you'll get surprised drugs labeled malai government it's there being sold by vendors so I'm wondering uh your department of SCB what is it doing not coming this m practice we have a lot of load blocks from liong way from zuzu to the borders and from liong way to the borders we have a lot of lord