Unfortunately, his odds of leading a healthy and prosperous life are not that good. The reason? Corruption. A team of reporters set out to find the ultimate victims of corruption. Raymond is a likely candidate.
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Bribes of 'greed' force poor into bribes of 'need'
Silent, under-privileged bear biggest burden of corruption
There is need, therefore, for Malawian journalists to engage a bottom-to-top approach in investigating issues relating to corruption.
However, if Malawi is to win the battle against corruption, officials also need to change their attitude of refusing to talk to reporters. We call on all public officials to admit to themselves that they're wearing dirty laundry and urge them to publicly denounce the bribery that has become a way of life here.
And we call on our fellow journalists to air their dirty laundry.
Journalists must also stop the tendency of receiving kickbacks, We are guilty of lying to ourselves by referring them as 'gifts' or as compensation for our travel or our meals. We fool ourselves into thinking these “gratuities” are acceptable because some of our employers will not pay for the expense we incur in the course of reporting.
Are the owners of media outlets unable or unwilling to treat these expenses as “the cost of doing business” or do some of them see the bribes reporters receive as a subsidy? Why pay the reporters' expenses if the newsmakers will pay for them?
How can the news media expose corruption if they, themselves, are knowing participants?
It is our hope at The Malawi Observer that this publication marks the beginning of change in investigating corruption and any other related issue.
Many people in Malawi believe that corruption only involves people in positions of higher authority, and those with a lot of money. This is not necessarily true.
Greed - other than need - motivates the rich and the powerful to engage in corruption. The authorities become corrupt because they want to consolidate their power - the rich want to amass more wealth. But, it is “corruption of need” that is the worst form of corruption because it affects people at the lowest rung of the ladder of society - the poor masses. Corruption of need exists on a much larger scale than corruption of greed.
The poor masses have no choice but to involve themselves in corruption of need because they want to access basic services - services that they should otherwise get for free.
As these Malawi Observer stories reveal, desperation to access essential services drives poor people to engage in corruption of need.
It is sad that the people in lower levels of institutional strata - the service providers - take advantage of the circumstances of the underprivileged to make a buck.
Too often, this worst form of corruption goes unreported in the media because we, the journalists, concentrate too much on the 'high profile' cases of corruption.
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paying ten-to-20 times more for their water than they should be paying.
License to steal
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nearby kiosk in her poor neighbourhood in Ndirande township
in Blantyre City.
Chimwemwe says she has to struggle to raise the K5 she must pay for a pail of water. She says she has to spend K25 per day on water alone for the five pails she buys at Chitsime Water Kiosk.
Lennie Chikaonda runs the water kiosk on behalf of the local communities. Chimwemwe says that her parents pay less than K5,000 for rent. Paying so much for water in Malawi is not normal - especially when, for some, the price of water can
exceed the price of rent.
Just like her neighbours, Chimwemwe has to wake up early in the morning to avoid the long queues that are common at almost the 300 water kiosks run by the Blantyre Water Board (BWB), the Blantyre City Assembly and community-based organisations in Blantyre.
Water is life.
Chimwemwe and her town folks know that they cannot do without it. But what most people don't know is that other unscrupulous people in the communities - including members of political parties - are taking advantage of the people's desperation and poverty to milk them out of their meager, but hard-earned incomes. Corruption has taken centre stage in the water distribution in many kiosks in the country such that poor people end up being ripped off. Malawi Observer has learned that the agencies that distribute the water are unable to collect much of the money from the operators of the kiosks.
Chikaonda says communities own and manage the kiosks as cooperatives. She says the community, however, is yet to form an association that will run the kiosk.
The Blantyre Water Board is the sole supplier of piped water in Blanyre. The board sells the water to the kiosks at .44 tambala per cubic metre. But the kiosks resell the water at K5 per pail.
That's a mark-up of more than 1,000 percent.
Every Friday, Chikaonda says, she deposits the revenue she collects from the sales into a pool account. She says the communities pay the water board the total bills accrued at the agreed fee of K0.44 tambala per cubic metre.
Chikaonda, however, says the officials managing the community's water account do not remit the money to the water board.
She says failure to remit the money to the board has resulted in the BWB disconnecting water from communities.
Alex Longwe lives in Mbayani township in Blantyre. He says poor communities have become the victims of other people's greed and corruption.
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The thieves are the staff members themselves.
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