Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director general Martha Chizuma has linked high levels of corruption in the country to universities’ failure to promote a culture of integrity in graduates.

She said this during a lecture she delivered on Thursday at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar) as part of the institution’s commemorations marking 10 years of existence.

Chizuma said: “Malawi has witnessed cases of fraud, corruption and all sorts of unethical conduct among different professions—agriculturists, lawyers, economists, procurement specialists, accountants, engineers, etc.

“All these professionals are incubated within the corridors of academic institutions whose value systems have such a huge bearing on the products/graduates they produce.”

She said other than wasting public resources, the corrupt officials also tarnish the image of the universities they enrolled.

She cited Cashgate, which in social media circles was blamed on Chancellor College (Chanco) graduates, as an example.

Cashgate was a financial scandal involving looting, theft and corruption that happened at Capital Hill, the seat of Government of Malawi.

A number of Chanco graduates were implicated, charged and convicted.

Meanwhile, Chizuma has urged universities to instil in the graduates a spirit of integrity to create a better future for the country.

Chizuma (C) poses with Luanar students and members of staff after delivering her lecture

“Academic institutions need to be ethical institutes and staff members need to behave ethically to foster a culture of integrity among themselves and the students.

“If academic institutions are unethical, there is clearly a tension between the educational responsibility of these institutions and the ethics that are conveyed by the moral atmosphere of the institute,” she said.

Luanar vice-chancellor Emmanuel Kaunda backed Chizuma’s observation, saying universities need to do more to promote ethics and integrity.

“We realised that these issues are not being propagated enough.

That is why we at Luanar were the first, if not second, public university that set up an institution integrity committee with the realisation that we must do more,” he said.

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