Malawi has failed to qualify for a share in a $15-billion package from the United States to fight Aids in Africa and the Caribbean because corruption in the country remains rife, the US envoy has said.
US ambassador to Malawi Steven Browning was quoted on Thursday by local dailies as saying that Washington is not ready to plough money into countries where venality is commonplace.
”Putting money where corruption is not controlled is a waste,” Browning said in comments published in the Nation and Daily Times newspapers.
Browning said although the impoverished Southern African country met some conditions for the aid package, ”its failure to control corruption does not help matters”.
”We therefore cannot go into partnership on this account,” he said.
US President George Bush announced the five-year $15-billion programme to fight Aids in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean in his State of the Union address on January 28.
Browning, who took up his post two months ago, said Malawi would have qualified because it ”scores well on a number of items on the criteria”.
The aid package is given to countries that have demonstrated commitment to ruling justly, investing in people and encouraging economic freedom, he said.
”To qualify, a country has to score above the median on half of indicators in each of the three policy areas,” Browning said.
He said the direction Malawi has taken on corruption ”is not good enough”, adding that reports by Transparency International show that Malawi has only been above the median in 1999 and 2000.
Britain has also in the past warned Malawi on corruption scandals that have tainted President Bakili Muluzi’s administration.
Britain’s former high commissioner to Malawi, George Finlayson, warned in 2000 that Britain ”will not back those leaders who are unwilling to take tough decisions on corruption”.
”We will not subsidise economic mismanagement. These are evils which have failed Africa and we will not back failure,” he said.
Finlayson’s remarks had come amid allegations that $2-million in government contracts to build schools were wrongly awarded to Muluzi loyalists who used the money in campaigning for general elections in 2000.
Britain provides funding for a police reform programme in Blantyre and for Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau, which is spearheading an investigation into the schools allegations. — Sapa-AFP