07 Jul 2019

Stakeholders, among them government departments have been encouraged to cooperate with the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) when the corruption busting agency requests information for their investigations.

The DCEC director general, Brigadier Joseph Mathambo made the plea during a stakeholder engagement meeting  in Francistown recently.

He explained that the meeting was one of the ways of building relationships that were necessary to intensify the fight against corruption.

Brig. Mathambo highlighted that the fight against graft needed the input of all stakeholders because corruption fights back strongly when it is confronted.

The DCEC head also informed his audience that the objective of the stakeholder engagement meeting was partly to share his vision in delivering the DCEC mandate with the Francistown leadership.

He explained that as part of their mandate, they endeavour to deny criminals the benefits of crime through confiscation of proceeds of crime, recommend administrative action against those who have willfully flouted procedures, capacity and partnership building for stakeholders, closing corruption loopholes and advising stakeholders on corruption prevention best practices.

He highlighted that the fight against graft depended on stakeholders’ support through the provision of authentic records that could help them to follow the money derived from corruption as well as bringing perpetrators to justice. Consequently, he mentioned that not only should stakeholders avail information, but they should do so expeditiously, act upon recommendations for administrative action and implement corruption prevention frameworks.

However, Brigadier Mathambo also explained that in their fight against corruption, they faced a myriad of challenges such as the absence of credible and authentic records required for a successful inquiry.

In addition, he said DCEC faced the challenge of delays in providing information required during investigations, failure in acting upon recommendations and intimidation of whistle blowers.

As part of his mandate, the DCEC head asserted that he wanted to develop a clear impact measurement framework, outlining how resources are used to produce outputs and how those outputs lead to outcomes.

“We will introduce a Monitoring and Evaluation Unit to oversee this function while all impact measurement work will be outsourced to independent entities for greater credibility and accountability,” he added.

Furthermore, he highlighted that the DCEC had already introduced a unit for dealing with money laundering and asset recovery and was in the process of opening another office in Palapye and Ghanzi in order to bring services closer to the people.

In return, he noted that they expected stakeholders to improve their record management practices, implementation of whistle-blowing policies, implementation of anti-corruption policies and implementation of recommendations.

Brig. Mathambo also expressed hope that the engagement would lead to enhanced collaboration in fighting the corruption scourge. ENDS