Maravi

Govt procurement of hearses is questionable, says Lubinda

Govt procurement of hearses is questionable, says Lubinda
Written by George Chellah
Friday, May 22, 2009 2:01:13 PM

PATRIOTIC Front (PF) spokesperson Given Lubinda yesterday described the government's procurement of 100 hearses from China's Beijing Auto Works (BAW) as reckless and questionable expenditure. In an interview, Lubinda criticised the procurement and accused the government of not respecting any institutions of governance in the country.

"This reaffirms what we have said before about the Rupiah Banda regime insofar as reckless expenditure is concerned. The rate at which the MMD government is entering into unacceptable expenditure and questionable procurement processes, by the time Rupiah is through with Zambia all of us in this dear country shall be reduced to abject poverty and suffering. Over the few months they have been in government, they have shown that they have got no respect for any institution of governance," Lubinda said.

"The US$ 2.9 million they have spent for procuring 100 hearses is not provided for in the budget of 2008 nor even in the budget of 2009. My question is: can Tetamashimba and his government show us where Parliament approved that K14.5 billion should be spent on hearses? Whether in this year's budget or the last year's budget? Where is that money approved by the National Assembly?"

He said it was irrelevant to him whether the late president Levy Mwanawasa or President Banda's administration made the decision.

"The issue for me is how come they didn't present this to National Assembly for approval?" Lubinda asked.

"The public procurement Act number 12 of 2008 states that procurements shall be made through open international and national bidding, and provides that limited bidding shall only be when goods or services are only available from a limited number of suppliers."

He also wondered why there was no open-tender bidding on the procurement of hearses at the cost of US$ 2.9 million.

"Can the government of Rupiah Banda tell us whether it's only this one firm in China that is able to supply hearses? Why didn't they ask Toyota, Nissan or South African firms? Why didn't they issue an open tender nationally or even internationally for people to compete?" Lubinda asked.

"Where does the ministry get the powers to procure assets at K14.5 billion? Here is clear case of breach of the public procurement Act of 2008 and breach of the tender board Act."

Lubinda questioned the government's morality in the procurement of hearses especially that most clinics and hospitals in the country lacked proper ambulances.

"Isn't it a higher priority to invest in ambulances in all health centres so that patients are delivered quickly from rural health centres to district hospitals to avoid death?" he asked.

"Rupiah Banda seems to be very keen to be President of the dead and not President of the living. We could use the ambulances to save life. They are choosing to buy hearses to quickly go and bury people."

Lubinda wondered why the hearses were pegged at US$29,000 when similar vehicles from China could be procured tax-free at a cheaper price.

"I want to state that PF is very disturbed by all these corruption scandals. We would like Tetamashimba to provide all this information as quickly as possible, otherwise we reserve the right to take legal measures for the court to help us get to the bottom of this matter," said Lubinda.

"For everyone, it's clear that US$ 2.9 million could have been used better to procure medical equipment or to build additional heath centres than to buy hearses. Can they explain to us what the motivation was to buy hearses? We suspect that somebody somewhere had interest on this matter."

Labels: CORRUPTION, GIVEN LUBINDA, PF, PROCUREMENT SYSTEMS

posted by MrK @ 1:03 PM