Maravi

I like The Post’s stance for the first time, says Rupiah

I like The Post’s stance for the first time, says Rupiah
Written by Chibaula Silwamba in Livingstone
Friday, May 22, 2009 2:41:56 PM

PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda yesterday charged at Secretary to the Cabinet Dr Joshua Kanganja for not suspending a former Ministry of Health official, Henry Kapoko, and other suspects over their alleged involvement in the K10 billion scam in the ministry.

And President Banda said he liked The Post's stance, for the first time, that there was need to find out the person behind the thefts in government.

Closing the Zambia International Business Advisory Council (ZIBAC) meeting at Zambezi Sun Hotel, President Banda said he was being attacked over the K10 billion scam but when the civil servants were stealing the money he was not there.

"I am glad the Secretary to the Cabinet is here, you need to be a bit harsh because there are people who we provide resources to and they don't use them. To remove, we have to transfer them, and transferring is not removing, it's only transferring the malaise from one department to the other," President Banda said.

"We have the issue right now, the K10 billion for which I am being attacked as President. I wasn't even there when he was stealing those vehicles and building mansions. You ask the Secretary to the Cabinet or any of those who are responsible; he [Kapoko] is sitting in a ministry right now. There has not even been an attempt to suspend him, 'let's investigate and find out what was going on. Leave him; after all he is not being attacked, the one who is being attacked is Rupiah Banda.' So you have the Patriotic Front making, having a heyday, you have The Post having a heyday and UPND, all of them saying 'it's Rupiah Banda who has caused all this!' Rupiah Banda was not even there, he was working in his gumboots at the farm."

He said while he was being attacked over corruption in the Ministry of Health, the civil servants that were involved in the alleged theft were still in public service without being attacked or questioned.

"We know that justice says you are not guilty until you have been found guilty, it's true," he said.

He wondered how the civil servant [Kapoko], who is under investigation, acquired the vehicles and wealth he had.

"Unless he denies, 'No! They are not mine, it belongs to my grandfather.' But if they are his, you put him aside, investigate and suspend all the others who should have been there," President Banda said.

"It's not possible that someone can steal K10 billion from our assets alone. How did he sign a cheque? He is a human resource manager. So I think that we have got to be tough all of us."

He said it was difficult for a politician to say the investigation should move in a certain direction.

"If you want to move all the way, they say, 'No! No! If you move like this it will contravene this and that regulation.' Then somebody will come and will go to the courts and say, 'suspend everything you are doing until there is a hearing about this.' Then someone will come and do this and that. Just continue to cause confusion," said President Banda, who looked upset.

"We can't wait. At the end we will leave nothing for our children. There will be no legacy for the hard work you are putting in everyday, the efforts all my colleagues are putting in everyday just because of a few individuals."

Without mentioning the name of Kapoko directly, President Banda said there must have been so many people involved in the scam.

"I like for the first time, I think The Post this morning, for the first time I read something The Post saying that, what were they saying? They [The Post] said 'we must find out who is the cause of all this. There must be a syndicate'," said President Banda while smiling.

He admitted that there was corruption in most government ministries.

"These things must be there in every department and every ministry. Let us not be shy about it; accept it that corruption is there. We used to laugh at Nigerians and all these other countries before but today we are here," President Banda said. "We have to take action."

He urged all Zambians to unite and fight corruption together.

President Banda also said some people that wanted him to take decisions on tribal lines had suffered already though he did not disclose the names and what action he had taken against them.

"Let's be one nation, not groups of people, tribe, this and that. What about this one? I am the older nationalist; I am an older politician than many of us here and I want to tell you, during our time we didn't know who was from where. During [Dr Kenneth] Kaunda's time at the beginning, we also got lost along the line, at the beginning he chose the best people and the people didn't ask him, 'why is this one not from my place'?" President Banda explained.

However, he said nowadays there was so much tribalism such that for every decision he made, he had to think about such issues, which he did not like.

"My dream is to build a stronger Zambia, a rainbow Zambia. I don't like, some people have even paid for this, people coming to me saying, 'we cannot have access to this because they are different from the rest of the Zambians'. They are not fit to be in my programme. I won't tell you the names but some people have suffered because of that. We should all believe that we can only build this country together," President Banda said.

President Banda said Zambia was passing through a difficult phase.

"I was only elected for three years. Who was telling me yesterday, one of the ambassadors, that there is too much politics here, how true? That is because there is only three years so the others think that 'if he starts now he will not be able to do anything.' Come 2011, we will say he didn't do this but he was the one who was stopping me," President Banda said. "It's necessary for us to understand that we have a very difficult period, we have never lost a president in office and the procedures here are unlike in other countries, are very long. You remember the Secretary to the Cabinet how much work we had to do from the time our president got ill, to the time we lost him, to the funeral, and then after that 90 days, the law of Zambia, thus when Zambians started saying that 'surely 90 days then we just decide? Why don't we let the Vice-President just act as President?' That is a new debate coming up. So we have spent nearly one year without doing work."

And President Banda said there was need to implement the recommendations of ZIBAC, the indaba and other fora.

Labels: CORRUPTION, HENRY KAPOKO, MINISTRY OF HEALTH, RUPIAH BANDA, THE POST, ZIBAC

posted by MrK @ 1:44 PM