Maravi

A thief takes Mutembo to LAZ

A thief takes Mutembo to LAZ
Written by Editor

It pays to be honest and sincere with one’s people. Those whose calling is to work for the public should realise that working for others demands honesty, integrity, humility and sincerity.One cannot be a master and a servant at the same time. But it would appear that people who hold public office in our country do not truly see themselves as servants of the people.

And given the low level of political consciousness of our people, those who represent them often take advantage of them: they rob them of their meagre resources and get away with it; they tell them lies and get away with it; they deceive and manipulate them in every conceivable way and get away with it.

Behaving in this way has become a culture of our public servants. Our public servants have no respect for the taxpayer. And although they know that the source of their remuneration is the taxpayer, they actually consciously don’t realise that the money they use is a product of the sweat and toil of that poor worker, of that struggling entrepreneur, of that marketeer who every day has to wake up three hours or so before sunrise. What happens is they take the money earned by these humble people and use it against them, to rule and govern against them. We see this every day. And we have clearly seen this over the last two weeks.

Rupiah Banda, who was languishing on some poor farm in Chipata, today can mingle with the rich, the famous, the powerful because of the power and resources given to him by these same humble people. But instead of respecting and honouring their efforts, Rupiah finds it more expedient to befriend, to favour those who have robbed them, those who have humiliated them, those who have left them helpless and in despair.

The same can be said about many other public servants in our country. It can be said about the Director of Public Prosecutions, Chalwe Mchenga. Instead of ensuring that obligations to the people take precedence over loyalty to Rupiah and Frederick Chiluba, Mchenga has chosen to go where power and money are being dispensed instead of going to the source of that power and money.

Real power does not lie with Rupiah or Chiluba, or indeed Mchenga himself; real power lies with the people. Anyone who looks at things this way will have a different set of priorities from those being exhibited by Rupiah and his minion Mchenga, among others.

However, there are many sons and daughters of this country who have dedicated their lives to honest and selfless public service. And such men and women, boys and girls have not had it easy with those who have gotten power through all sorts of deceptions and manipulation. They are every day being fought; there are attempts every day to humiliate them, to undermine their work and to paint them black.

Examples of this abound. But there is one good example that has come up in the last two weeks. And that is of Maxwell Nkole, the dismissed chairman of the Task Force on Corruption. Max performed his duties at the Task Force with sufficient honour and integrity. We say this because if this was not the case, Rupiah and his friends would have been very quick to use that against him.

It is an insult for Rupiah to accuse Max of indiscipline. Where does Max’s indiscipline lie? In not subscribing to a corrupt scheme to let their friend Chiluba go scot-free when the man has committed so many crimes against the poor people of this country? Actually, indiscipline lies with Rupiah and Mchenga. What claims of discipline can Rupiah legitimately make? Can Rupiah’s conduct inspire discipline in the nation? Rupiah is not known for discipline; he is much more famous for indiscipline.

As for Mchenga, his record of indiscipline is there for all to see. He is disciplined in obeying illegitimate schemes. Can obeying the corrupt orders to grant Kashiwa Bulaya a nolle prosequi be said to be discipline? Can obeying corrupt orders to take back Bulaya to court after prostituting himself on the same score be said to be discipline? Where does Mchenga’s discipline lie? It lies in indiscipline, in going against the wishes of the Zambian taxpayers in favour of some corrupt politicians.

Those who serve the people truthfully will always be the enemies of those who seek to rape the people. How can Chiluba in all fairness go to the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) and complain that public prosecutor Mutembo Nchito has disobeyed the orders of Mchenga in filing that notice of appeal against his acquittal by magistrate Jones Chinyama?

What gives Chiluba this kind of audacity? How can a thief complain against a prosecutor for doing his job? Since when did Chiluba become Mchenga’s representative? Are they now playing in the same league? Anyway, it is said that those who refuse to learn from history are bound to make the mistakes of history.

It is not the first time that Mutembo is being taken before the Law Association of Zambia for allegedly disobeying Mchenga’s instructions. In 2005, we remember Levy Mwanawasa calling upon the Law Association of Zambia to discipline Mutembo because according to the advice George Kunda had given him, Mutembo had refused to obey Mchenga’s instructions to withdraw the case against Bulaya. Like Mchenga today, Levy said the Bulaya case should be withdrawn because it had no merit.

We all know today that the Bulaya case was a damn good case, it had all the merits and Bulaya is in jail. And yet at that time, Levy, George and Mchenga had wanted Mutembo disciplined by the Law Association of Zambia because according to them, he had refused to obey instructions.

We seem to find ourselves in a very similar situation. Mutembo, acting as a public prosecutor, filed an appeal on behalf of the state. Mchenga accused him of purporting to act in his name and withdrew the appeal. And now Chiluba has laid a complaint at the Law Association of Zambia on behalf of Mchenga, or in defence of Mchenga. How can a thief defend the dignity of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions? This is simply a way of a thief saying thank you for setting me free. That’s all Chiluba is doing: thanking Mchenga for helping him escape jail.

Maybe our people have forgotten. But the Law Association of Zambia told us that when Mutembo appeared to hear the allegations against him from Levy and his friends, the state gagged him, telling him not to talk. The same people who were accusing him were telling him not to talk. In the end, the Law Association of Zambia decided that Mutembo had done nothing wrong. Shamelessly, Mchenga allowed the case to go back to court. We don’t see anything different this time. The only thing that may be different is that there are new players at the Law Association of Zambia whose independence from those who govern, from Rupiah, Chiluba and Mchenga, is yet to be seen. This is the history before us, a history that is quickly repeating itself. But men and women must follow the dictates of their conscience irrespective of the consequences that might overtake them for it. Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of a more just, fair and humane society. It is in the character of growth that we should learn from both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. It is intolerable and unacceptable that the cancer of corruption is still eating away at the fabric of our society with impunity. But the great lesson of our time is that no regime can survive if it acts above the heads of ordinary citizens of the country. Zambians are conscious of their obligations to do whatever they can to contribute to the fight against corruption, abuse of public office and other evil things of the same nature.

Things are really repeating themselves. And we should be determined to know what happened in the past to ensure that it is not repeated. And this past we are talking about is not very long ago, it’s just three, four or five years ago. Nevertheless, it is a history that needs to be known or remembered. We say this because the past is a rich resource on which we can draw in order to make decisions for the future. And the purpose for looking at the past, at what happened yesterday is not to deride human action, nor to weep over it or to hate it, but to understand it – and then to learn from it as we contemplate our future.

Labels: CORRUPTION, MAX NKOLE, MUTEMBO NCHITO

posted by MrK @ 3:04 PM