Maravi

Claim no easy victories

Claim no easy victories
Written by Editor

In life, it is very important to be clear about things. It is equally important to learn to call things by their correct names. It seems to us there is a lot of confusion about the nature of the problem in the Ministry of Health and in government generally.

We sympathise with our law enforcement officers. We know that the job that they are expected to do is a very difficult one. It is very involving and cannot be accomplished overnight. If there has to be progress, in a meaningful way, in our fight against corruption and other wrongdoing,we must be very clear about what we are fighting. Without that clarity, it is impossible to lead the broad masses of our people in defeating corruption and other vices in public life. Without this, the cause of fighting corruption cannot be victorious.

Fighting corruption needs not only the right or correct political attitude but also the right methods from the police, the Anti Corruption Commission, the Drug Enforcement Commission and all other state agencies involved in this war.

We must have faith in the masses of our people and at all times tell them the truth and never attempt to mislead them into thinking what is being done is simple and as good as done.

As Amilcar Cabral advised: “Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories…”

This should be the attitude of those who are engaged in this very important work on behalf of all of us. They need to be honest with themselves. Having learnt to be honest with themselves, they should master the courage to be honest with their political masters. They should never create an impression that fighting these very complicated crimes is easy.

As we stated earlier, they should claim no easy victories. Collecting cars, confiscating this and that property is a very important step in this process but it is not the end of things – it’s just the beginning of a long and tedious process. It is good that the ACC, for instance, chose to share the information of the things they had seized from the suspects in the Ministry of Health scam with the public.

This is as it should be. But now we hope that the people who are leading these investigations understand, as they should, that the distance between what they did when they showed us the evidence of that alleged plunder and securing convictions in the courts of law is a very long one indeed.

The investigators should not succumb to the temptation of moving with speed dictated to them by political expectations and the tide of public opinion. We say this because these matters will not be decided by the court of public or political opinion but by the evidence and rules of our courts of law.

And if a lot of care is not taken, there can be gigantic disappointments and wrongdoers will walk away with their loot, leaving the investigators with dry lips and our people bewildered and frustrated.

We say bewildered because our people will be asking, ‘What happened? We saw the clear evidence of wrong -doing but how come these crooks are walking scot-free?’

This is why the investigators must exercise maximum patience, professional maturity and integrity. Without this, they will start to commit serious violations if the law that they are trying to protect out of haste to show signs of progress.

For instance, out of pressure – political or otherwise – our investigators were forced to unjustifiably detain Henry Kapoko and other suspects from the Ministry of Health for more than 48 hours contrary to the accepted practice and standards.

This pressure can and should be avoided by not creating unrealistic expectations in the minds of the public. The law enforcement agencies must always act with moderation and humility in dealing with the public. The investigators are not politicians who are known for their propensity towards exaggeration.

We are saying this with full sympathy for the task that is upon these officers. Public expectation has been raised too high due to political rhetoric which has now led to political pressure upon these professionals to quickly deliver the desired results.

We all know that if donors had not frozen funding to the Ministry of Health, there would have been no political interest in this case. In fact, we would not have been surprised if instead political pressure was brought to stop the investigations and denounce the whistleblowers as was the case at Food Reserve Agency recently.

The pressures on the investigators, notwithstanding, professionalism and clear thinking is very important.

It is extremely important to stick to what is being investigated and correctly address it as such. We say this because over the last few years, a practice has emerged in our country where we call any crime committed by a public officer ‘corruption’. We may even be guilty of this ourselves. We are always talking about the fight against corruption. We can be forgiven because we are not criminal investigators, we are investigative journalists. But this is a disaster when extended to the criminal investigators. They must call offences by their right names if they are to direct the investigations correctly.

Most of what is being generically called corruption is actually not corruption but plain theft. But the little law that we have learnt tells us that there is a problem with the kind of theft that we are seeing in our country. It is not the theft that we were taught in law school. People are stealing things like houses or indeed they create transactions which, like hens laying eggs, produce houses, lodges, motels and so on and so forth for them.

When one looks at what has happened, it is very clear that there has been a theft. But the question is; how? These are the challenges that the investigators must be facing and seeking answers to.

These are complex questions seeking simple answers. These thefts are so complex that to expect answers overnight maybe expecting too much.

What we are being entertained with today are clear cases of theft. But this is not to say there is no corruption going on in the Ministry of Health. There is corruption in that ministry. But it is easier to deal with cases of theft than those of corruption.

The reason is simple: theft cases will deal with a very specific amount of money and the case is likely to be small or short.

Although this is the case, theft cases do not answer the question of the millions of dollars of assets and properties that have been realised from stealing government funds. The criminals are likely to get away with most of what they have gained. This is why we have been saying that these cases are showing us that there might be something wrong with our laws. There might be some inadequacies that need to be dealt with.

It can never be right for public officers to use their positions, give each other contracts outside the norms of public accountability and get away with the ill-gotten wealth.

Entrepreneurs should exercise their business skills in the private sector and not in government offices at public expense. When this happens, there is no running away from the fact that public officers abuse their position in one way or the other to acquire advantage and business opportunities. Crime syndicates begin to thrive in government offices. What is worrying is that we do not seem to have the right legislative framework to deal with this systemic threat.

We are saying this because from what has happened at the Ministry of Health, we all know that it is not normal, it is not expected that a junior civil servant should acquire the kinds of assets that are being attributed to junior civil servants in that ministry. The question is, what offence have they committed by being found with such assets? Is it corruption? Who paid them a commission which resulted in those kinds of assets?

We ask these questions because, according to the laws of our country, corruption is simply receiving an unjustified commission which is not a casual gift. Indeed, if the offence is theft, stealing, what is it that the civil servants stole which makes it unjustifiable for him or her to retain ownership of that lodge, motel, hotel or other properties?

These might sound like very simple questions. But the little law that we know tells us that the answers have fundamental ramifications.

This is because there is something wrong in a society when somebody who has clearly stolen or acquired things immorally can walk away with their loot whilst society looks on helplessly. This is what may happen in some of these cases. We will all know that this or that house, this or that guesthouse, this or that lodge, was built with proceeds from crime and yet be unable to do anything.

These are the fundamental evidences of serious systemic gaps that make it possible for people to rape the government, leaving the public with little, or no, recourse.

Against this background, the investigators must be insulated from cheap political pressure aimed at winning back donor financing. The problems that the investigators have are already very difficult without any politician adding anything to them.

We are not saying for a minute that the politicians have no role to play in these matters. They do have a very important role to play.

Their role is very cardinal because of the many policy lapses that we have highlighted. It is the job of politicians to come up with laws that are going to ensure that people do not continue to steal from the government and public affairs are managed in an efficient, effective, orderly and honest manner.

There is a certain type of complicated theft that is not being catered for in our laws. Instead of putting unnecessary pressure on the investigators, our politicians should spend their time coming up with legislative frameworks to deal with this. This should not be a very difficult thing because in today’s world there is enough information available publicly providing international best practices in fighting serious financial crimes.

What is needed is a political will to stop this scourge.

Labels: CORRUPTION, HEALTHCARE

posted by MrK @ 8:08 PM