By Sylvester Kumwenda

Dowa, September 10, Mana: District Commissioner for Dowa Stallichi Mwambiwa has urged the Institution Integrity Committee (IIC) to enhance the fight against corruption at the institution as one way of improving service delivery.

He made the remarks Monday in Salima during a three-day Corruption Risk Assessment (CRA) Training and Consultations for the core team from the council, being facilitated by the Anti-Corruption Bureau.

He said one of the factors affecting service delivery is corruption; hence, the CRA core team must identify all loopholes which may facilitate the emergence of corruption.

"Corruption is a sickness which can deteriorate our performance. It puts to risk the plunder of public resources. It benefits a few at the expense of the multitude we serve. It can kill our integrity as a council.

"This committee therefore must carefully scrutinize all loopholes, and opportunities in any office or sector that may lead to corruption to effectively prevent it," he said.

Mwambiwa praised the team saying he was confident that the committee would lay strong foundations of preventing corruption at the institution.

The training has been financed by contributions from various sectors of the council.

On this, Mwambiwa said it proves that the whole council is determined to fight corruption at the institution.

"The only way we can reward the sectors which have made this training possible is to maintain the vibrancy of this committee and provide tangible results in our fight against corruption.

"However, I should emphasize that CRA is not witch hunting, but rather only an approach that involves assessing an organizations systems and procedures to determine where weaknesses may give rise to opportunity for corruption," he said.

Dowa council IIC chairperson Amigo Wiseman in an interview said the workshop focuses on developing CRA tools, management process, action plans for risk mitigation, implementation, measures and control amongst others.

"It is a demanding process, but we are determined to achieve this because we will be sharing ideas from different perspectives.

"We anticipate that CRA will provide management with information needed to deal with corruption effectively and complement informed decision-making," he said.