Implications of Corruption on Public Administration in Malawi

Abstract

The paper interrogates the functionality of the public administration machinery and the bureaucrat in an environment where institutional  corruption exists. The National Anti-Corruption Strategy II (NACS II), a policy document launched by Malawi Government in 2019, recognises corruption as one of the significant impediments to national development targets. NACS II indicates corruption derails  social and economic development efforts resulting in poor service delivery. There is a general belief among the citizenry in Malawi that  corruption has become institutionalised Chunga and Ned, 2022). The internal systems of institutions that are responsible for the  provision of public service have been riddled with corruption manifested through weaknesses in critical areas such as human resource  management systems, public procurement systems, and public finance management systems; weak controls in the execution of budgets  leading to the misuse of public resources and maladaptive practices such as embezzlement. Based on secondary data, the paper explores  the implication of such institutionalisation of corruption in the internal systems of public institutions based on Weberian theory on public administration and the bureaucrats. The Weberian theory argues that a bureaucrat is regarded as an agent of the state who is  characterised as functioning not on an inherent sense of motivation but on an externally imposed set of criteria of neutrality, impartiality, ethics and professionalism .