Maravi

Corruption should be fought by all, says Aka

Corruption should be fought by all, says Aka
By Lindiwe Banda and Abigail Chisenga
Thursday November 22, 2007 [03:00]

Corruption is injurious and should be fought by all Zambians because it is never a victimless crime, Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanika has said. Addressing trainee journalists at The Post yesterday, Aka said there was a misconception that certain corrupt activities had no victims and yet corruption that occurred in public offices had the potential to injure people that were not even aware of it.

“It is everybody’s responsibility in civil society to be alert and take action to ensure that we do not continue to be victims of corruption. But there is a misconception about who is civil society. Civil society is all citizens of a particular society,” Aka said. “The majority of Zambians are not partakers of corruption but are victims.”

Aka, who is a commissioner with the ACC, further said that the current governance system was alienated and did not match with the cultural system. He said that the alienation that was prevalent made it difficult to have an attitude that allowed people to realise that individuals that stole from public resources stole from everybody. He said that most people holding public offices alienated themselves in that they thought that it was okay to corruptly own properties at the expenses of other people’s lives.

“The public is not fully aware of the corruption that has occurred in the past. It would be a challenge to review the history of corruption in this country. The public will then use the power of the vote to fight corruption. If the electorate makes it known that if an individual is corrupt they will not be elected, this will contribute to the fight against corruption,” Aka said

He further said that forces of corruption needed to be fought vigorously as corruption was an enemy within individuals, communities, nations and also on the international front.

Aka also said some individuals allowed themselves to be corrupt, corrupted, careless, and silent when they know about corrupt practices in such a way as to facilitate corruption. He said other people allowed themselves to collaborate with corrupt individuals, therefore encouraging it. He said people tended to admire certain lifestyles but it would take an alert and very intelligent observer to notice that such high lifestyles may be a product of corruption.

Aka said corruption was inherently immoral and that it was not possible to divorce the act of corruption from immorality. He said according to the ACC Act, bribery and abuse of office were the two categories that corruption was made of.

“Bribery is soliciting, receiving, giving, attempting to solicit, to receive and to give and being silent when you have observed these things,” he said. “It is some sort of an exchange of favours, except that one party gives favours which are not his or hers but at the expense of public resources. Bribery is a manifestation of abuse of office. Rather than use your position in public office to discharge your responsibilities, you use that position to favour yourself and you give things that are not yours to yourself.”

Aka said that some systems of work facilitated bribery. He explained that certain circumstances allowed only two signatories to a document. He said this made it is easy for the two to conspire and practice corruption. Aka said the systems needed to be looked at, to see if they facilitated, aided and made it easy for people to be corrupted.

He said the nature of bribery was such that it was secretive and was better done in environments where there was no transparency, in systems where there was no accountability. He said it was therefore important to look at systems and how they operated.

“There are also environments that are conducive to corruption, systems that have delays, confusion, systems that do not indicate procedure, systems that are over-centralised. Pensioners have to come a thousand miles to Lusaka; there is no system to make it easier for them to get what is rightly theirs. Some of the systems that facilitate bribery are left that way on purpose. There is also need for systems to have records of transactions,” he said

Aka further said the most fundamental facilitators of abuse of office were the blindness and disregard for the possibilities of conflict of interest. He said that the area of conflict of interest occurs in every public service job category. He explained that there was need for individuals to declare interest in matters that may in one way or another concern them.

Labels: ACC, AKASHAMBATWA MBIKUSITA-LEWANIKA, CORRUPTION

posted by MrK @ 7:24 AM