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Business Daily: Malawi's Cashgate

10/10/2014

Malawi's Cashgate

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Malawi's Cashgate

What has been the effect of a corruption scandal on one of Africa's poorest nations?

What has been the effect of Cashgate, a corruption scandal in one of Africa's poorest nations? Are people suffering becuase of the withdral of donor support?

Malawi in southern Africa, is a country recently rocked by scandal. Tens of millions of dollars of government money was being skimmed from the national budget – some of it supplied by foreign donors.  As a result, the donors have stopped funding the government altogether.

So what is the effect of this on one of Africa’s poorest nations? Are people suffering? Or is this the tough medicine Malawi needs to clean up corruption. 

Ed Butler visits Lilongwe’s Kamuzu central hospital to find out what effect the budget cuts have had on public services. Dr Charles Mwansambo is the chief of health services in Malawi and he says that the health budget has been maintained. But a senior doctor tells Ed that isn’t the case and that hospitals have been suffering.

So should the donors themselves take responsibility for the human suffering the cuts are causing? Andrew Mwaba from the Africa Development  Bank says they are not at fault. 

Plus Ed asks Goodall Gondwe, the finance minister, what the government is doing about the loss of donor support. And political scientist Blessings Chinsinga sees a vicious circle in the cycle of poverty and corruption. He says that meaningful change will only come when poor Malawians can achieve enough economic independence to hold their politicians to account.

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