Chancellor College-based political commentator Ernest Thindwa has faulted the country’s poor leadership saying it has fueled corruption in the country.

Thindwa’s remarks comes after the latest rankings of Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by the Transparency International indicates that Malawi has performed poorly in 2019 and has dropped from 120 to 123 out of 180 ranked countries with a score of 31 out of 100.

Thindwa said: “In fact it could be worse than that because in this country instead of fighting corruption we are feeding it and if we critically analyze the situation on the ground, the ranking could be worse than that.”

The commentator blamed lack of political will among the duty bearers saying those mandated to fight corruption have lost track and the country has completely lost control.

Thindwa therefore urged Malawians to take to task the duty bearers to ensure existence of transparency and accountability.

In his remarks, a social commentator Rafik Hajat said “things have fallen apart” in this country.

He gave an example on the recent development whereby a prominent businessman was arrested over a highly rated corruption charge which concerned the current court elections case but was released in a questionable manner.

CPI is an index published annually by Transparency International since 1995 which ranks countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.

The CPI generally defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefit”.