Halt govt services to Chiluba
Halt govt services to ChilubaBy Editor
Thursday May 10, 2007 [04:00]
It will not help matters much for Frederick Chiluba to continue pretending he is innocent and did nothing wrong. There's no conspiracy against him. Why should the people of Zambia, the British courts and all others conspire against him? The truth is Chiluba violated basic principles of leadership, of decency. The truth is Chiluba took and applied on himself public funds which were not due to him. If Chiluba wants to be treated nicely by the Zambian people, he should also try to be nice to them.
There is no way Chiluba can expect to be respected by anyone, or his thefts to be accepted and ignored by the Zambian people.
It is very clear Chiluba had lost a sense of perspective and priority as a political leader and a citizen of this country. And he is yet to realise or learn the importance of incorruptibility as part of the essence of self-respect. While we should all appreciate opportunities to enjoy the good life, we should always refuse to use our positions to get ourselves or our families anything that wasn't due to us.
A dangerous tendency has shown itself of late among many of our political leaders - an unwillingness to share the joys and hardships of the masses, a concern for personal fame and gain. This is very bad.
The duty of our political leaders or representatives should be to hold themselves responsible to the people. Every word, every act and every policy must conform to the people's interests, and if mistakes occur or are made, they must be admitted, acknowledged and corrected - that is what being responsible to the people means. All our political leaders, whatever their rank, are servants of the people, and whatever they do should be in the service of the people.
And all must learn the spirit of absolute selflessness and serve the people whole-heartedly and never for a moment divorce themselves from the masses. They should proceed in all cases from the interest of the people and not from one's self-interest. There is no doubt Chiluba betrayed all this and elevated his personal interests above that of the people, especially of our poor people, whom he was elected to serve.
Chiluba didn't take the joys and hopes, the sorrows and anxieties of our people, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, as his joys and hopes, his sorrows and anxieties. And because of this he had no problems diverting over US $1 million from public coffers to buy himself designer suits, shirts, neckties and shoes while the condition of the great majority of our people was increasingly becoming more and more desperate. Stealing from the poor in order to enrich oneself will certainly only lead to one thing - loss.
What our people are seeking is a genuine system of government in which the political leaders are servants of the people and not their masters who can take and abuse public resources with impunity. It is the duty of every Zambian to ensure that those who take up government positions are honest and humble people. This is so because good governance will only occur when we have intelligent, honest and humble leaders who see politics as a vocation to serve the people and not as a tool for self-enrichment or aggrandisement.
No one deserves to be a leader if he is not honest and has sticky fingers because politics is an area of great importance for promoting justice, development and community among all our people. We should always regard politics and political office as a vocation, a way of building up society for the common good. People like Chiluba, leaders like him cannot call others, ordinary citizens to virtues of honesty and integrity which they themselves do not make an effort to practice.
Chiluba has betrayed the trust placed in him by the Zambian people and has shown no remorse for the wrongs he did. He cannot continue to think he is more clever than all the Zambian people put together. This country has never known a single genius - it can only have a collective genius. Chiluba has stolen public funds; he abused the high office entrusted to him to satisfy selfish desires, vanity and greed. He displayed the most irresponsible and reckless attitude towards public funds. One would have been a bit more sympathetic probably if he had stolen $5,000, 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 to buy 20 or more suits for himself. But not the hundreds of suits, shirts and shoes he bought and didn't have enough days in a year to wear them.
This is stupid. He did not steal to satisfy a legitimate need but it was purely a matter of foolishness and unbridled ego. Who has ever become important by having thousands of suits, shirts or shoes? A leader is not respected for the clothes he wears but for his deeds and outlook. What were Chiluba's deeds or outlook? Banditry! That's all we can remember him for. And this is what he will be remembered for.
We support those calling for a freeze, a halt to Chiluba drawing further benefits from public funds. There is nothing special about Chiluba for the Zambian taxpayers to continue giving him more of their hard-earned money and pile it on top of what he has already stolen from them. And this will not be the first time a former president is denied retirement benefits in this country.
Chiluba himself denied Dr Kenneth Kaunda his retirement benefits for absolutely no good reason. Why shouldn't we do so in Chiluba's case where there is a good reason? There is no way the Zambian people should allow in any way their taxes to be used for the construction of Chiluba's house.
All means necessary should be used to stop this shameless thief from continuing to enjoy public funds and services.
And if Chiluba continues with this lack of respect for the people of Zambia, he should be taught a lesson and made to realise that he may call himself a political engineer but he cannot fool all of us. We therefore urge the government to take all the necessary legal steps needed to withdraw services and other benefits from Chiluba. If the government does not do so, the people may one day rise and do it directly themselves.
Labels: CHILUBA, EDITORIAL, EGOTISM, KENNETH KAUNDA
posted by MrK @ 3:47 AM
3 Comments:
" A dangerous tendency has shown itself of late among many of our political leaders - an unwillingness to share the joys and hardships of the masses, a concern for personal fame and gain. This is very bad. "
I think it is more than that. They have no vision, no skills for changing the country's course, so they simply settle for the perks of being in power.
That is why they follow the IMF's rules, without giving their own input or even softening the 'policy prescriptions' the IMF lays out.
What is needed is a new generation of leaders, with skill in political science, finance, business, sociology, engineering.
We have seen State House inhabited by a school teacher, be it one with great integrity, heart and intelligence. He was followed by a bus conductor, then a barrister with brain damage, and now what? A cop (Sata)? A tv preacher (Mumba)? And we don't need more lawyers.
Where are the professionals?
The country desperately needs someone with heart and integrity, but with the knowledge of how to say no on to the IMF. The knowledge or skill in delegation, to enact land reform, get the mines back and start streamlining the government.
And another thing. Modern management is about delegation. It is about getting the greatest talent in the world and letting them get on with it. Monitoring their progress, and firing them if necessary, but basically government today is too complex for one individual to have all the answers. The real winner, is the manager/president who can create the winning team. But the manager/president has to have enough basic knowledge of all the fields, to understand the overall issues, and he himself has to be able to recognize the people who are the best in the business, instead of depending on other people's judgment of them.
In future elections, the electorate will have to seriously pose the question - is this individual suitable to lead the nation?
Also, there has to be a series of public debates - mandated by law, if necessary - so everyone can see who they are voting for.
I am amazed that everyone seems to be focussing on FTJ alone. Granted he was the Chief player but there are many other Zambians who have benefited from the Zamtrop account. It seems to me all the people I thought had money have actually stolen it from the public.
I think he may be the first to fall. And because he is out of power, the most obvious one.
He is the one who took power in 1991, after UNIP rule, and the first to set a precedent of multi-party democracy.
He was also involved in the Vulture Fund saga, by taking a bribe in exchange for information about Zambia's debt (price tag: $15 million ordered to be paid out - $3 million of the original debt settlement = $12 million dollars extra to the Zambian taxpayer).
And of course it is convenient for the Mwanawasa government, his political heirs, to focus on him, instead of themselves. However, they too will be out of office one day.
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