Servants and masters

Servants and masters
Written by Editor

When political leaders, as servants of the people – and not masters, are called upon to account for their actions, they should be prepared to do so without hesitation. This is their duty. Anyone who does something for another person or who acts on behalf of others has a duty to account.

Being called upon to account is not a punishment, it’s not an insult on the integrity of anyone. Whenever one is using resources that belong to other people, he has a duty to account to those people, to his masters who have sent him to do what he is doing.

The President of this country and other political leaders are not masters of the people. And they should never think they are masters of the people simply because the people give them respect and other privileges that are not given to others. They are not like our chiefs who are not servants but masters of the people. But even our chiefs have to still account for their decisions and actions to the people. For instance the Litunga, as master of the people of Barotseland, cannot go around doing whatever he wants simply because he is the king.

He accounts to the people, the humblest of the people of that kingdom. The Litunga can’t just go grabbing land that doesn’t belong to him and dealing with it as he pleases. He is king but with accountability to the people; he is master but with responsibility to his subjects. In fact, this is the way almost all our chiefs are operating and those who have tried to depart from this line have faced resentment from their subjects. But these are chiefs, these are masters, not servants. If the masters can behave this way, can be made to account in this way, what more our political leaders who apply for employment to the people and go round the country begging the people to employ them as their servants?

There can be no democracy without accountability. There can be no rule of law without leaders being made accountable to the people they are elected to serve. The absence of accountability is a definite recipe for disaster, for anarchy. Only corrupt people, mischievous elements, thieves hate accountability. Those who want to do wrong things, the first things they attack and destroy is accountability, its controls. They don’t want anybody to ask them any questions about their decisions and actions because doing so will expose their crimes. Anyone who dares to question them, anyone who attempts to expose their dealings becomes an enemy.

It seems Rupiah Banda and his friends have a problem with accountability. They are confused about the role that they are supposed to play in our country. They don’t seem to know who they are: whether they are servants or masters of the people. In their political rhetoric, they say they are servants of the people but in their decisions and actions, in their behaviour they are masters who should only account to themselves and to those they want to account to. This is an unfortunate trait because it makes their work much more difficult than it should be. If Rupiah and his friends decided that they would only do those things which are in the interest of the people, their work would be much simpler, more straightforward. We say this because if one goes into public office with the idea that he is going to be guided by the principle of service to the people, by the interests of the people, by what the people want, leadership becomes much more predictable.

If following tender processes is in the interest of the people, why should a leader have problems with it? Rupiah and his friends seem to have a problem with transparency and accountability in procurement. But what does one expect from people who have lived a good part of their lives earning a living from government contracts and commissions? Today they are in charge of awarding the same contracts they used to chase after. Their Christmas has come; what they sought most is under their control. If one goes around government offices, most people still remember how these leaders, their children and friends just a few years ago were following them for contracts to supply this and that. But today they are their supervisors and their sons and friends are in charge. This is part of our problem in the government procurement system.

When all a leader is interested in is benefitting himself, his family and friends from government, it is difficult to give priority to the interests of the people. This is because their personal interests, their own deals take precedence over those of the people. Again, this is the problem we are today facing in Zambia.

In such an environment, work accountability becomes a nuisance, a hindrance, an insult to those in leadership. Such leaders view anyone asking them to be accountable as a threat to their interests. They don’t look kindly on those who emphasise accountability and transparency. But what such leaders forget is that the problem is not the people asking for accountability, it is their failure to respect the public trust that they possess that is a problem.

With such leaders, it is easy to understand why GMO maize could be imported into the country by the sons and friends of those in leadership against standing government policy. And when this is done, the President stands up to defend the indefensible, even making the most ludicrous suggestions that the GMO maize can be milled at the borders. This is what lack of accountability, greed and vanity does even to the minds of intelligent people. They can start suggesting things that wouldn’t make sense even to a five-year old simply because they want to protect their interests, they want to put some money in their pockets – self-interests propel them far ahead of public interests.

Leaders who see things this way cannot fail to defend clearly wrong deals like that of RP Capital Partners Limited. A deal that is going to cost the Zambian taxpayer at least US $2 million, in their eyes was only worth US $50,000 and they defended it with everything at their disposal – corrupt civil servants, compromised state-owned and government-controlled media editors, hired corrupt elements purporting to be civil society leaders and so on and so forth. This was the behaviour of Rupiah and his friends. And even his son Henry was all over trying to advance this rotten transaction.

This is what Rupiah’s problem is today. He is not a servant. He wants to be a master. Rupiah is not there to serve but to rape. With this kind of attitude, his presidency will be a troubled one. Scandals are going to be unfolding every day. Rupiah and his friends should not blame The Post, the civil servants and their political enemies for the exposure of the wrong things they are doing. If they were doing correct things, there would be nothing to expose. Indeed those who say Rupiah is running a corrupt and heedless regime are very right.

A lack of accountability obviously thrives in an opaque environment. Leaders like Rupiah who don’t want to be accountable, who do not wish to operate in a transparent fashion have a problem working with honest people. Many honest people are going to have problems working in Rupiah’s government.

We are not surprised that David Kapitolo has been dropped from the Zambia Public Procurement Authority. If his conduct at the recently-ended tribunal is anything to go by, he seems to be an honest man. Even when faced with forceful interference in the procurement function by the then minister for transport and communications, Dora Silya, Kapitolo in the documents available to the tribunal seemed determined to give honest professional advice.

How can it be a crime for a civil or public servant to advise a minister honestly? How can it be wrong for a public servant to appear before a tribunal and tell the truth on oath? But it seems this is not what Rupiah and his friends expected. They expected civil and public servants to come and lie on oath in defence or protection of Dora and their dirty deals.

This is what happens in a nation when leaders lose sight of what is in the interest of the people and start to give priority to their own personal schemes. This is what happens when dishonesty takes over the management of public affairs.

We have spoken about this in the past, what is happening is known as “state capture”. Corrupt elements work to ensure that the state machinery only works if it delivers according to their personal needs. This is what is happening. We have no doubt that if Kapitolo was ready to work according to the dictates of the long queue of corrupt elements who no doubt visited his office every day, he probably would still be in a job today.

This is not about Kapitolo, this is about our country. There are many Kapitolos out there, public servants who are striving to do an honest job who will end up paying by being fired. This is what Rupiah wants Zambia to be. We are determined to ensure that he never blames us for not telling him. We are telling him again: his behaviour, his conduct of public affairs will land him in trouble. Our system is not yet perfect but there is a growing desire for the respect of law in our country. The fact that Rupiah is President does not make him above accountability. He shouldn’t think he is a law unto himself. Frederick Chiluba used to think that way. And now that the two are very good friends, maybe Rupiah should learn something from Chiluba. Dishonesty does not pay. What Rupiah has done to Kapitolo will not end at Kapitolo. He will be trying to do this to many other public servants, trying to hammer the whole nation into submission, into the service of their personal schemes. Some will be co-opted into this corruption but some won’t and will fight back.