Maravi

Day of reckoning is near for Dora

Day of reckoning is near for Dora
Written by Editor

Informed public opinion is the most potent of all restraints upon mis-government, any attempt by our politicians to muzzle the press cannot be regarded otherwise than with grave concern.There is need to protect those who expose wrong- doing, those who blow the whistle when public offices are being abused.

It doesn’t do this country any good for the police to threaten those who are exposing crime in government.

It must be pointed out that almost all the high-profile cases of corruption that are in our courts today and those which have been concluded were not strictly initiated by our police or other law enforcement agencies. They were brought out by ordinary citizens like ourselves.

The law enforcement agencies just joined in when public pressure was high and the abuses could not be concealed. The corruption cases that this country has known in the last 17 years or so have not been exposed by the police. In fact, the police has played a very negligible role, if any, in fighting corruption in this country. If anything, they have defended and protected the corrupt.

We shouldn’t forget that when these plunder cases started while Frederick Chiluba was still president of the Republic of Zambia, the police harassed and arrested those who were accusing Chiluba of corruption, those who were calling him a thief.

We should also remember that those who exposed this plunder of public resources were also prosecuted for doing so by our Director of Public Prosecutions. It is not surprising that almost all the heads of our security and law enforcement agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Commission, are today facing corruption charges.

But who brought these issues to the public? The great majority of them, if not all, are a product of the work of this newspaper. In saying so, we are not seeking credit or glory because this is the function for which this newspaper was founded. And it is not something that this newspaper does for glory, honour or recognition. We do it as a matter of duty and conviction.

It will not be of help to this country for the police to spend its time chasing after those who are leaking information of wrongdoing in government. The police would do better to follow on these tips and arrest those who are abusing their offices. By now, instead of wasting their time issuing threats to the whistle-blowers, they should be following Dora Siliya, trying to find out what really happened and probably take a warn and caution statement from her for abuse of office.

But we are comfortable by the fact that no amount of threats by the police or any other person for that matter have ever succeeded in scaring our people, in stopping them from exposing corruption, wrongdoing and abuse of public office. As once Levy Mwanawasa observed, there is no national security that is violated when corruption is exposed. Levy said this when justifying the use of the Zamtrop account in our defence when we were facing prosecution for exposing the corruption of Chiluba, Xavier Chungu and their other friends.

Let us not forget that this is a country whose former president is in court for corruption together with his chief of intelligence, army and air force commanders. This is the country whose chief justice had to resign because of corruption. This, in itself, is an indication that although there is need to trust our leaders, there is always the necessity to verify what they are doing in our name.

And this explains why the public needs to have greater access to public information. When we talk about access to information legislation, we are not only seeking it for the media; it is for the public to directly use it. The nonsense we are hearing today is only possible because those in government can hide under the cover of secrecy to do wrong things.

Abuse of public resources and office is easily done where government operations and procedures are secret. Corruption is best carried out under the cover of secrecy. And moreover, what is secret about valuing and selling Zamtel? They are trying to keep some secrecy over this transaction so that they can abuse the power they have to enrich themselves or their friends.

We welcome the decision to probe Dora under the parliamentary ministerial code of conduct. This is good law that has not been put much to public use. We therefore urge the public to ensure that the access to information bill is quickly turned into law.

As for Dora, the tribunal proceedings will provide an opportunity to explain what she failed to explain in Parliament. It will also give an opportunity to the public to know exactly what happened in these transactions. It will help people know everything about what happened: what everyone did, what Dora did, what the Attorney General did and indeed everything that we ourselves have done.

It will help the public also know what goals Dora was seeking, what goals the Attorney General was seeking and indeed what goals The Post was seeking and who was right – Dora or the Attorney General, we or Dora and who had acted dishonestly in discharging a public trust.

We hope this tribunal will move our country to another stage in the fight against corruption and other abuses. It will teach Dora and others of her kind something.

Dora doesn’t seem to know that there is no better tactic, no better strategy than to fight with clean hands, to fight with the truth. We say this because these are the only weapons that inspire confidence, that inspire faith, that inspire security, dignity and morale. And these are the weapons The Post has been using to expose and help send the corrupt to prison.

Lies are weapons that help no person, and no serious person ever needs to resort to a lie. Their weapon is reason, morality, truth, the ability to defend an idea, a proposal, a position. In short, the moral spectacle of Dora is truly lamentable.

She went to Parliament to lie about what she did. She also told Parliament lies about us and our motivation in doing what we are doing. We have not done this job of exposing corruption to advance our own personal positions or business interests. We had no personal quarrels with all these people who, as a result of our work, are today going to jail. In fact, some of them were very good friends of ours.

It is stupid for Dora to insinuate that all that we are writing about her deeds is because of our investments in Zambian Airways. We only got involved with Zambian Airways in late 2007 and this was because the airline needed money not only from us but from many other investors. If there is any crime that we have committed as a result of that investment, let Dora go to the law enforcement agencies and report our wrongdoing.

As for our applying for a cellphone provider licence, it is surprising that Dora can even try to twist facts that were in the public domain just to suit her evil intentions against us. We applied, like everybody else who did so, in response to an advert that was put by the Communications Authority inviting applications for a fourth cellphone provider. However, these applications were suspended because of the court case against the Communications Authority brought up by Mr Enoch Kavindele and Vodacom Zambia Limited. No one’s application was accepted or rejected. No one has been awarded a licence to provide a fourth cellphone service. So this being the case, how can Dora say we are against her because she denied us a licence to provide a cell- phone service? What type of liar is Dora?

Dora has tried to conjure up a thousand conjectures. She has tried to come up with all sorts of insinuations against us, and we have waited patiently because it was necessary to wait. This differentiates us from her and her friends. We know how to wait; we know how to be patient; we never despair. We are not in a rush. They live in perpetual despair, they are in a rush to get rich. They live in perpetual anguish, in perpetual lying, in the most ridiculous and infantile way.

When you read some of the things said by Dora and her friends, you ask yourself: but how is it possible this person is not in a stable instead of belonging to what they call a government, a parliament? Some of them come out with absolute nonsense. And they have a tremendous habit of lying, they cannot live without lying. They live in fear. And you wonder: do they believe everything they say? Do they need to believe everything they say? Or do they say everything they don’t believe? It is difficult to say, this would be a matter for doctors and psychologists.

Naturally, we are accustomed to this because we are used to their baseness. How can they survive without lies? How can they explain all their abuses, if not with lies and calumny, trying to discredit and smear with filth those who oppose them?

But what is clear is that these people are shaping a country or a nation of which they themselves are scared. It is therefore the duty of every well-meaning Zambian to ensure that high levels of accountability in all government dealings are demanded of these people.

Labels: DORA SILIYA, ENOCH KAVINDELE, FRED M'MEMBE, PRIVATISATION, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 5:07 PM