The Football Association of Malawi has today signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Anti- Corruption Bureau aimed at supporting the fight against corruption in the country.
The MoU, which was signed at FAM headquarters in Blantyre by FAM President Walter Nyamilandu Manda and ACB Director General Martha Chizuma pledges ways in which football can be used as a vehicle to fight corruption.
Nyamilandu Manda said FAM feels obliged to offer its massive football platforms in fight against corruption which is a biggest threat derailing the growth of Malawi as a country.
“The signing of this MOU is a milestone for FAM and underlines the absolute commitment of FAM and me as President to put football at the service of society and to use it as a tool to support the achievement of public policy objectives.
“We are proud to have a partner like ACB as we strive to use the unique power of the beautiful game as a vehicle to drive the agenda of corruption prevention in the country.
“We commit to use the game’s popularity and massive footprint across the country as a vehicle for ACB to use in the fight against corruption,” said Nyamilandu.
Apart from football offering its products and services in the fight against corruption, FAM also intend to use the partnership to fight corruption in football.
“We are not immune from fraud. There are a lot of corrupt activities that are derailing the growth of the game among them, Match fixing and manipulations . These practices undermine the credibility and integrity of football and results are detrimental resulting in among others the withdrawal of sponsors.
“As FAM we have over the few years taken significant strides in relation to good governance and in the area of football integrity, including the fight against match manipulation and corruption in general.
“We have included in our statutes, rules and regulations clauses to deal with Corruption. We have set up compliance and Audit committee and a number of independent bodies in strengthening the governance systems of the Association and corrupt practices in check.
“But that is not enough to clean our game because we don’t have the expertise to deal with Corruption and this why we want the Bureau to compliment that aspect,” said.
Chizuma said: “For all of us in the ACB Family today is a good day because it is a day we hold hands with one of the powerful and popular institutions in the country in the fight against corruption.
“We are truly grateful to FAM for the various platforms and products that have been offered through this agreement for the execution of our mandate especially that of prevention of corruption and public education. The Bureau commits to exploit this opportunity for the benefit of all Malawians and specifically football loving Malawians.
“This collaboration is founded on mutual benefit of the strategic goals for both our institutions. As the Bureau helps build the anti-corruption capacity of football stakeholders for the good of football development and set up corruption resistant structures in football, it will also benefit from this relationship because soccer has that natural attraction for people, it pulls crowds of people which will enable us easily to disseminate anti-corruption messages,” she said.
Thanks to the new landmark agreement, FAM and ACB will focus their efforts on the following areas:
- Anti-Corruption awareness.
- Capacity building for football officials, players, and stakeholders.
- Developing corruption reporting tools.
- Consultations on certain areas of mutual interest that may emerge from time to time.
- Conducting periodic system reviews and risk assessments to identify corruption loopholes.
- Developing and implementing anti-corruption strategies, policies, and systems and any other strategy deemed necessary and appropriate by the Parties.
- Investigate and prosecute corruption related issues in football.
- Joint resource mobilization initiatives for the aforementioned activities
