Lessons from Chiluba's thefts
Lessons from Chiluba's theftsBy Editor
Sunday May 06, 2007 [04:00]
What has happened to Frederick Chiluba is what happens to individuals, to people, to leaders when they start to see themselves as possessing all the wisdom and all the power in the land. To put it another way, this is what they meant when they said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It was not difficult to predict that Chiluba would end up this way. Many editorial comments were written and many statements were made predicting Chiluba’s ending. Many good people, well-meaning people advised Chiluba against corruption and abuse of office or power. But he was stiff-necked. He did not want to listen to anyone. He could only listen probably to his own demons.
To demonstrate his hold on power, Chiluba had to show everybody that he was the greatest man in the country in all respects. It did not matter what he had to do to show that he was the greatest. In so doing, the poor former trade unionist had to dress in the most expensive clothes in the world, he had to carry on his wrist a very expensive Rolex which is probably even too heavy for his arm. Chiluba acquired a taste that was far beyond the reach of his legitimately earned income. His tastes were also beyond his presidential powers.
We know very well that the President of this country is not the highest earning person in the land. The President’s salary is gazzetted and is only a few million kwachas. Chiluba started to go beyond his earned income and used, or rather abused, public funds to do all sorts of things - buying his children cars, acquiring houses for girlfriends and extending all sorts of financial favours to those who were ready to patronise him.
Clearly, Chiluba got lost in the maze of the power of presidency. He got confused by the power and glitter of the office he held. All he had to do was cough and people would run to his service dropping all sorts of favours, including money that he did not know what to do with.
The stupor of the power-induced intoxication closed his eyes to the most basic norms of decency. In his mind, he had become great, he was the alpha and the omega for this country and forgot that he was supposed to be a servant of the people. Accountability did not seem to exist in his thought pattern. He was the president and therefore he could do anything. The money and other resources of this country all belonged to him, they were the extension of his unlimited power.
To this day, Chiluba does not see the difference between public resources and personal resources. Because he was president, he believes he was entitled to unlimited access to public resources. He cannot accept that he is answerable to anybody for his stewardship over public resources. What is worse is that he surrounded himself with shameless psychophants, yes-men and spineless characters whose only discernible preoccupation was to pick for themselves what fell from Chiluba’s table.
This man in many ways suffered a presidential power-induced brain damage that is almost incurable. Why do we say this? Chiluba still believes that he deserves unlimited access to public resources and he still surrounds himself with the same type of spineless idiots who helped him ruin his presidency and consequently this country.
It is inconceivable that a man who was president of this country for ten years, who better than most of us should understand the suffering of the people, can be so insensitive as to continue to defend the plunder of national resources that he presided over. He shows no remorse and no regret for the tragedy that he caused many Zambians. He is, as judge Peter Smith has correctly observed, truly shameless.
We reached the conclusion a long time ago, and we were very convinced, that Chiluba was abusing the faith placed in him, in his office as president of the Republic of Zambia.
He followed a policy that respected no values or principles of decency other than those of thieves, pirates and crooks. His behaviour was almost amoral - beyond immorality. Chiluba organised the state apparatus to pursue personal ends. We believe Chiluba has had a lot to do with the conversion of corruption into a system, into a way of life and a way of governing in our country. Chiluba took corruption to the highest levels of power in our country. Before Chiluba, corruption was limited and only known to exist at the lower echelons of government.
Chiluba promoted corruption by taking it to the highest office in the land - the presidency, State House. He literally turned State House into a den of robbers. One wonder how much time he spent on national issues because he seemed more interested in cash for himself, his children, his girlfriend and many hanger-ons.
In case there were to remain any doubt among those who are so naïve as to take pleasure in deceiving themselves or to be deceived, Chiluba’s actions were not a product of oversight or unfortunate mistakes, nor were they unconscious, but rather they were deliberate and conscious. He simply allowed himself to be blinded by personal ambition, greed, vanity and unbridled selfishness.
And as a result of this, he created a series of problems for our country in all spheres of our national life. in a word, he created veritable chaos in the nation. Chiluba created a culture, probably what he called a new culture, of nchekelako; a culture of banditry and thieving. He created a culture which has no respect for merit, honesty and hard work. He has left us a country where only those with sticky fingers can prosper. If we were reviewing the private life of an ordinary citizen, this would be a very sad story.
But it is worse than that. This is the life of a former head of state; the principal steward and custodian of everything Zambian. Chiluba’s life and its impact on Zambia is a disaster. It is difficult to believe that this is the man who presided over the affairs of this country, a country of eleven million inhabitants, for ten years.
It is easy to analyse or review what this foolish man has done to himself and our country. But this is not an issue for cold scholarly analysis or propounding. There are great lessons that we must learn as a nation, as a people if we have to harbour any hope of ever governing ourselves in a manner that will be beneficial to ourselves and future generations, especially the weakest of our citizens.
It is well more than six years ago since this shameless thief we had for president left office. But we are still today keeping intact the entire legal and organisational framework that enabled him to do all these silly and crazy things, to steal and abuse our people.
Very little effort, if any, has been exerted by the current government to change or improve accountability in our country. Everything still centres much on patronage, on one man and his friends. This probably, more than anything else, explains why there has been very little movement forward in stamping out corruption in our public service. The same public servants who helped Chiluba to steal are still using the same institutions to steal - of course not for Chiluba - for themselves.
This is the matter that even President Levy Mwanawasa himself has repeatedly acknowledged. Very few are in public life in Zambia today to serve the people; they are there to seize every opportunity available to enrich themselves.
If this system, which Chiluba has bequeathed us, is not changed, even Levy - with all his best intentions - may find himself devoured by it. This corrupt system is like a shark. When it swallows one, there may never be any trace of one ever having existed. We cannot continue with a system that is inherently corrupt because doing so will be like planting a mango tree and expecting to reap bananas from it. This one-man system, this one-man government is inherently corrupt.
We said yesterday that we should give levy the credit for the tenacity that he has shown in carrying forward this fight. Although that is a good thing, law, order and accountability for public resources should never depend on the president or the benevolence of the man occupying State House. The Chiluba example clearly illustrates this fact. The day the country has a misfortune, as was the case with Chiluba, of having a criminal for president, a thief for a leader, national coffers will run dry - will be looted to the seams.
Democracy is not a perfect system. It produces aberrations like Chiluba. Let us not forget that even that idiot Adolf Hitler was a product of democracy - he was popularly elected by the German people. We cannot say never again will our country be ruled by a thief. But we can confidently say, never again will a thief steal our people’s money and get away with it. We can say whoever steals from our people will be caught and dealt with.
But to say that with absolute certainty requires the sharpening of not only our political awareness as a people, but also a reorganisation of all our structures of government to ensure that public affairs are conducted in an efficient, effective and orderly manner. We need to design a system of government that cages sticky fingers and safeguards public resources.
This brings us to a very important issue, the matter of our constitution review process. As the country continues to debate this matter, we need to ensure that the outcome represents the needs of the people and their desire to govern themselves in a manner that is beneficial to them and not to those in power.
We say this because we have seen what those in power can do in the name of the people, claiming to be the only ones with the mandate to speak and act on behalf of the people. Chiluba had the mandate, an overwhelming one for that matter, to speak and act on behalf of the people, but he instead governed the country against their wishes.
There is no way Chiluba’s thefts of public resources can in any way be said to have been in the interest of the Zambian people whose sole mandate he claimed to have had in all that he did against them.
Labels: CHILUBA, COURTS, EDITORIAL
posted by MrK @ 4:06 AM
2 Comments:
One down, who's next? Isn't Mwanawasa building mansions for his predecessors and himself. So now that chiluba has been convicted what will happen to his undeserved mansion? Zambia needs hospitals and schools plus requisites and yet billions of kwachas are being spent on irrelevant mansions for the former and the incumbent who have done nothing to alleviate poverty or the suffering of the majority few! Mwanawasa was supposedly purpoted to reap billions from his bananas so why consectrate billions more to build him a mansion of his liking? What about his bosses, the commoners who elected him to take care of their asserts, what is in stake for them? Former leaders and the incumbent himself have had illimited access to public funds and do not need to be rewarded for IT. I hope Mwanawasa will be able to tell his story too, once he vacates State house. People will want to know how he amassed his wealth. The Zambian economy is dwindling and yet his "firms" are registering astronomical gains which belittles even the dow jones indexes. If his companies were that profitable how come they are not listed on SE. This is nothing but one big circus and I hope people are not duped. Chiluba is just a speckle in the zambian world of corruption, the big thugs are still in government eating with mwanawasa.
slm
" Mwanawasa was supposedly purpoted to reap billions from his bananas so why consectrate billions more to build him a mansion of his liking? "
I wouldn't be surprised at all if these 'bananas' were marked up in price or volume for money laundering purposes.
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