Malawi president challenges corruption watchdog

Malawi's president has challenged corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) to back its findings that graft has worsened in the southern African country.

The State House said in a press statement that President Bingu wa Mutharika questioned how TI reached its conclusions .

"Transparency International has to prove that corruption has worsened in Malawi in the last three years and we challenge them to show us the methods they used to come up with the latest figures," said the statement.

TI identified Malawi as a nation with widespread graft in its latest corruption perceptions report, saying its ranking had slipped.

The CPI is a composite index that draws on multiple expert opinion surveys measuring perceived levels of public sector corruption in 180 countries.

It scores countries on a scale of zero to 10, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption and 10 indicating low levels. A mark below three suggests corruption is "rampant".

Malawi received a 2.7 rating.

"We know that Transparency International used outdated information ... that's why we are calling on their director to justify how they came up with this," said the State House.

Berlin-based TI said that while poorer countries should tackle their own graft problems, richer states are also responsible, and often to blame.

Malawi's Anti-Corruption Bureau says that in the last two years it has handled 900 graft cases and only managed to conclude 12 of them.

"This represents only 1.3 percent of the total number of cases. We have managed to convict and acquit others within this space of time because corruption is not an easy issue to deal with," said its spokesman, Joseph Chimatiro, on Thursday.