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Corruption continues to blight Banda’s govt – TIZ

Corruption continues to blight Banda’s govt – TIZ
Written by George Chellah
Monday, June 29, 2009 2:48:59 PM

TRANSPARENCY International Zambia (TIZ) president Reuben Lifuka has said corruption continues to blight President Rupiah Banda’s administration.

Lifuka said TIZ was disappointed that President Banda did not address the need to make changes at Cabinet minister and deputy minister level during his press conference last Wednesday.

"It is quite evident that there are some men and women serving in these roles who do not deserve the title of minister or deputy minister. Some of them continue to engage in conduct, which is less inspiring and signals a permissive nature of the appointing authority of such conduct. Conduct such as the non-retirement of imprest, abuse of office and generally corruption continue to blight the Banda Administration and he should have taken action to sweep his Cabinet clean," Lifuka said.

"Similarly, there are still some permanent secretaries who are in service but have been fingered for wrong doing - we strongly believe that the President should have acted to remove these from office."

He said TIZ's own analysis of the press conference showed that one could characterise it in two parts.

"Such as the first part was presidential and in a small measure tried to deal with pressing national issues albeit in very broad strokes. The second part of the Press Conference was political and involved the rather sad use of the occasion to lampoon the opposition political party leaders as well as The Post newspaper. We found this mix of approach - unfortunate and clearly led to some of the good points raised in the first part, being diluted by the cavalier attitude adopted and the focus of energies on extraneous issues in the second part of the conference," Lifuka said.

"Transparency International Zambia, like many other stakeholders, had a number of expectations for this second press conference. Specifically, in terms of fighting corruption, we had hoped that the President would this time round clearly articulate strategic measures that will holistically address the problem of corruption especially in the light of glaring exposes in some government ministries. Secondly, it was our hope that the President would bring finality to the inglorious situation occasioned by the ongoing strike in the health sector."

Lifuka said TIZ like many other stakeholders wanted to hear President Banda take drastic measures to free up resources, which could be used in national development.

"...Especially in the health sector following the withholding of funding by some donors and the possibility that more donors could take similar steps in the near future. Finally, it was our expectation that action would be taken to remove from office - Cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and permanent secretaries who are simply failing, through their acts of commission and omission, to deal decisively with the growing problem of corruption in their ministries. It is clear to all that the President needs to tweak in some instances and overhaul in others, his team in order to successfully demonstrate seriousness in the fight against corruption," Lifuka said.

"In terms of concrete outcomes, we hesitantly welcome the decision to establish a Serious Fraud Unit within the Anti-Corruption Commission, as well as the creation of a Financial Intelligence Unit and the decision to extend forensic audits to other government ministries. Our hesitation to these measures emanate from the lack of coherence in the measures themselves to other important reform aspects needed in order for Zambia to make headway in the fight against corruption."

He said from an institutional development aspect, it was difficult to understand how the various institutions and sub units created or currently in existence would operate.

"For instance, how will the Anti-Money Laundering Unit under the Drug Enforcement Commission interface with the Financial Intelligence Unit? What will be the role of the Taskforce on Corruption given the new institutional arrangements made? The danger we see is that President Banda has adopted a 'structural decision making' approach to the corruption problems of this country. There seems to be a strong principle of believing that the solution to public sector corruption is to create new structures to deal with specific mandates. While this may have immediate results, there is a risk of duplicity in functions and unnecessary public expenditure on structures that are not well thought through," Lifuka said.

"Creating a Serious Fraud Unit in the ACC without corresponding capacity development support, is recipe for failure. Even outside this new unit, ACC needs serious injection of funds to strengthen their operations and improve technical competencies in a number of areas and simply be effective in the work that they do. It would have been appropriate therefore, to learn from the President on the overall government strategy on developing an appropriate institutional framework for fighting corruption - a framework that considers not just the ACC but other important players like the Zambia Police Service, DEC and the Auditor General's Office.

"Other areas which require strengthening and reform include the Judiciary - clearly there are challenges in the Judiciary which require timely institutional and technical support in order for them to play a meaningful role in the fight against corruption and it will be a travesty to imagine that simply building the capacity of one entity will bring success to bear. A well-defined framework should help develop synergies between government agencies involved in the fight against corruption. Independence of the ACC and other watchdog institutions is equally important and we would have loved to hear from the President on this."

Lifuka said TIZ would have wanted President Banda to allude to other policy and legal reforms that were necessary in order for success to be attained in the fight against corruption.

Labels: CORRUPTION, RUPIAH BANDA, TIZ

posted by MrK @ 1:49 PM