Maravi

Investigator General

Investigator General
By Editor
Friday June 13, 2008 [04:00]

The revelation by Investigator General Caroline Sokoni that her office has difficulties conducting investigations because it only has two investigators is a serious one. For a long time now, the Office of the Investigator General or the Commission of Investigations can be said to have been inactive because very little is heard about its activities and achievements and yet this is a very important institution in a country like Zambia that has waged a war against corruption.

It is difficult to understand that the government passionately wants to fight corruption in the country but at the same time has neglected the office of the Investigator General or Ombudsman in other words.

The main function of this office is to oversee the government administration and to check the abuses of power by those running public offices. The commission is part of the government machinery to deal with administrative abuse. This is a very serious task. No wonder only those who qualify to be appointed as High Court judges are appointed to serve as Investigator General.

Until the early 1970s, Zambia did not have the office of the Ombudsman or Investigator General. In 1972 when cases of corruption and abuse of power were becoming more rampant, Dr Kenneth Kaunda expressed a wish and desire to set up an institution like that of Ombudsman to fight these vices.

This was at the time that he appointed the Chona Commission of Inquiry to review the Constitution. After the Chona Commission finished its work, the government accepted its report to establish the office of the Ombudsman in Zambia. This office, among other things, was mandated to supervise the work of the executive by checking on its maladministration.

Clearly, this is a very important office which the government seems to casualise, going by Sokoni’s revelations. In her presentation before the National Constitutional Conference public service committee this week, Sokoni said her office receives hundreds of complaints every month or one million complaints per year and yet it only has two investigators countrywide. She also complained of lack of funding, among other issues.

How can the government claim to be serious about fighting corruption or abuse of power in the public service when the very institution that is supposed to play a key role in the fight is neglected?

With this gloomy picture painted by Sokoni, one is not inspired to have any confidence in her office because its existence appears only to be on paper. As things stand today, maybe only Sokoni and President Mwanawasa are the only ones who know the success rate of her office.

Serious attention needs to be paid to the existence of this office. First, there is need to properly fund this office and ensure that it has all the skilled manpower it requires; not those men and women they bake in a desperate bid to reduce the heavy work load.

When this is done, there will be need to look at giving the office of the Investigator General the autonomy that it so much requires. Today, the Anti-Corruption Commission and Drug Enforcement Commission seem to be doing a lot of work largely because of the autonomous status that they enjoy. But even with this autonomy, we still hear of some form of external political interference from time to time.

Currently, the Investigator General reports directly to the appointing authority, the President. This arrangement leaves much to be desired because, like Sokoni rightly observed, the President is too busy to look at one million complaints every year and take action against erring institutions. There is no doubt that the office of Investigator General will be more effective if it is made to report to Parliament because this will also promote transparency in their work as they will know that their work will be for public consumption.

As the situation stands, it is very easy for the President not to act on some complaints because this arrangement makes him the Alpha and Omega. He appoints the Investigator General who receives and investigates complaints and later prepares reports for his action. If he decides not to act, that’s the end.

And because all this work is done in camera, the public will not be aware of it. So far, we don’t know how many cases have been acted on and how many have died a natural death. One cannot be wrong to conclude that this state of affairs puts the office of the Investigator General in the pocket of the party in power.

This has to change. This office is too important to be run the way it is at the moment. The whole country has only one office in Lusaka. There is no presence of the Investigator General in the remaining eight provinces of the country and yet there are public offices in all these provinces. How can two investigators cover the whole country with numerous complaints on a daily basis?

Without doubt, there is a lot of abuse and maladministration going on in our public offices considering the fact that the office of the Investigator General receives one million complaints on average per annum. If this office is properly supported and funded, it will do a lot to promote transparency and accountability in the management of public affairs. There is every need to build institutional capacity of the office of the Investigator General if its well-intended objectives are to be realised.

Labels: CAROLINE SOKONI, INVESTIGATOR GENERAL

posted by MrK @ 4:47 AM