Maravi

Eulogising criminals, thieves

Eulogising criminals, thieves
By Editor
Sunday November 18, 2007 [03:00]

If corruption is not going to be seriously addressed in our country, we should forget about any economic or social progress. For a country with very limited financial resources like ours there is need to prudently, efficiently utilise them. We cannot afford to waste the little funds we have and expect to see the lives of our people improve.

As we have pointed out before, there is need for the nation to pay a lot of attention to the issues being raised by the Public Accounts Committee about the misapplication and misappropriation of public funds; in short, about corruption in the management of public affairs.

The remark which Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanika made at an Anti-Corruption Commission seminar in Livingstone this year to the effect that there is corruption in Zambia because we tolerate it is very valid. If Zambians were intolerant to corruption there would be very little of it, if any, in the nation.

And Charles Milupi, the chairman of our Public Accounts Committee, is very right when he says Zambians eulogise criminality, thieves. We are more intolerant of those who practice witchcraft than we are of those who steal public funds. If someone is accused of witchcraft, no one in the community will want to deal with him - they will stop buying from his shop.

But if someone is accused of corruption nobody does that to him - they will drink from his bar as if he has done nothing wrong. Yes, witchcraft may kill but corruption kills more.

We should not forget that corruption is another form of enslavement. It defeats ordinary people in their efforts to have a better life and it abuses especially the poor. It allows the rich and the powerful people to gain benefits that they don't deserve, at the expense of the poor and the powerless. Corruption really hurts the community spirit than suspected witchcraft.

There is a Bemba proverb that says "uwikwite asontele ubwali ku kanwa" , meaning the person who is already satisfied only points to the mouth and doesn't pay any attention to others who might be hungry.

We must all cooperate as citizens of this country in fighting corruption.

The fight against corruption is not for, and should not be left to, President Levy Mwanawasa, law enforcement agencies, Transparency International, the media and other activists. It should involve all our people. Everyone is needed in this fight.

We should all join the struggle for the establishment of a more honest society, a society in which there's respect for public resources and where everyone is a brother or a sister to all and not a wolf.
Someone once described honesty as the glue that holds society together.
If a wife can trust that her husband is honest, there will be happiness in the family. If the person who buys goods in the market believes that the marketer is not cheating, then business will flourish. If the voter in an election can have confidence that the candidate is sincere in all the promises being made, then politics will really benefit the people.

But when dishonesty becomes the way of life, the accepted way of acting, then society falls apart - in families, in business, in politics. And that is indeed sad! Being dishonest is not going to make anyone really happy.

Maybe for a moment, one might feel good to have received something that he or she shouldn't have received. But in the future, they will feel sorry. As the Chewa proverb says, "zokuba sizilemeletsa", meaning things that are stolen will really never make one rich.

From the reports of the Auditor General and the work of the Public Accounts Committee, it is very clear that the business and affairs of our government are not being managed in an efficient, effective and orderly manner.

What this means is that the controls that are put in place to help administer public resources are not working as they should. Those in charge of government business and affairs are not discharging their duties effectively, efficiently and in an orderly manner leading to serious misapplication and misappropriation of public resources. Why are things this way? Is it because nobody cares?

It is clear to us that the controlling officers in government ministries and departments are not functioning the way they should. But the question is why? Permanent secretaries who are the controlling officers are all single-handedly appointed by the President on three-year contracts, of course renewable at his discretion.

This apparent casualisation of such important jobs has inherent dangers in itself. It puts permanent secretaries in a very weak position and they cannot do their job efficiently and effectively without risking termination of their contracts or non-renewal at the end of their term.

This means instead of doing government work they way it is supposed to be done, they will be busy trying to please the President and those in his league.
And mostly these people are picked from outside the civil service - from our universities and other places where they have never had any responsibility of that magnitude.

Government ministries and departments are very big institutions with large numbers of workers and very huge budgets and usually these people find themselves at sea. Highly educated people - with post-graduate qualifications - and who have been in the civil service for more than 20, 25 or so years are sidelined and at most they are mere directors.

We have not encouraged the development of a professional civil service. Instead we are using civil service jobs or appointments for patronage. And this is worse in diplomatic postings where nepotism is the order of the day in the appointments. In this way we have corrupted the civil service using the highest office in the land - the office that makes these appointments.

We have killed professionalism and spirited work in our civil service. And in this way we have made corruption a permanent feature of our public service institutions. But let's not forget that low public respect for the public service is more than the response of disappointed consumers to an inadequate level of service.

Government is more than a service provider; and finding the right balance between skepticism and confidence in the government will always be difficult. Certainly, though, very low confidence and widespread cynicism about the performance of government can have pernicious consequences, undermining democratic institutions and reducing the attractiveness of the public service as a career to those with talent.

There is abundant anecdotal evidence that the public's respect for government is eroded by political and bureaucratic corruption. And common sense suggests that reducing official corruption can enhance respect for government. We need to fight corruption not only for moral reasons but also because corruption - both political and bureaucratic - can have a devastating social and economic impact.

Labels: CHARLES MILUPI, CORRUPTION, PAC

posted by MrK @ 6:32 AM