Maravi

Chiluba won’t go scot-free forever

Chiluba won’t go scot-free forever
By Editor
Mon 02 Nov. 2009, 04:00 CAT

Fighting corruption is not an easy undertaking. It requires a lot of commitment because it is risky. Those who truly fight corruption have no personal benefit in it. Fighting corruption means engaging the powerful - politically, financially and otherwise.

But no society can prosper and be efficient, effective and orderly without fighting corruption. And this is probably why Nelson Mandela observed that "corruption in government - that is plague that must be erased from every regime in every place in the world".

The inefficiency, ineffectiveness and disorderliness that today characterises Rupiah Banda's government is partly due to corruption. Take for instance the issue of fuel.

Yes there are other factors that have contributed to this chaotic supply of fuel in the country but a large measure of it can be attributed to corruption in the procurement system. If friends of the President and his sons are given contracts to supply fuel when they don't have the capacity to do so we should expect problems.

Rupiah is running a government whose activities are designed to deliver the maximum benefits to his family and friends. And this affects almost all areas of government activities in this country. Even the confusion that seems to surround the operations of the judiciary are partly due to Rupiah's corrupt way of handling public affairs. Relatives and friends of Rupiah are causing problems in the judiciary in a bid to try and secure his desires and his hold on power.

The acquittal of Frederick Chiluba has raised many issues that today are working to undermine the standing of the judiciary. And there are very few people today in this country that are in doubt about how Chiluba's acquittal was secured. And very few people in this country and the world at large are in doubt as to why Rupiah's government has withdrawn the appeal against Chiluba's acquittal.

This is very well explained by the utterances of Rupiah, his ministers and of his spineless Director of Public Prosecution. There is no doubt that the whole issue surrounding Chiluba's acquittal and the state's refusal to appeal that acquittal is a product of corruption. All those involved in this scheme cannot escape legitimate accusations of corruption.

It is therefore a waste of one's thoughts to think that after the abolition of the Task Force and the handing over of its investigations and prosecutions will result in Chiluba being further charged and prosecuted for corruption.

The way Rupiah has defended Chiluba it will be folly for anyone to think this same man can sanction the state to take Chiluba back to court. If there was any possibility of Rupiah doing so, he would not have secured and defended Chiluba's acquittal in the manner he has done. Rupiah has staked his political survival on Chiluba's acquittal. This being the case, he will not allow a situation that reverses this and takes Chiluba back to square one.

It is for this same reason that Rupiah's government has serious problems getting the London High Court judgment registered in this country and enforced against Chiluba. How can the same Rupiah who has gone round the country proclaiming that Chiluba is an innocent man be expected to come back and grab stolen property from this same 'innocent thief'?

Things in life don't work that way. Yes there are contradictions but not contradictions of contradictions. The London judgment will never be enforced in this country against Chiluba as long as Rupiah is President. This is why they are so desperate and are going round the country paying chiefs to defend their criminal acts and decisions. This is why they have to retain power, at all costs, in 2011.

The Anti Corruption Commission, as it stands today, is not in a position to take on Chiluba and by so doing take on Rupiah. The Anti Corruption Commission does not have the leadership and the organisational capacity to do so. If anyone in this country is cheating oneself that corruption involving Chiluba or indeed Rupiah himself and his family and friends can be investigated and prosecuted by the Anti Corruption Commission, they are living in a wrong country at a wrong time. The Anti Corruption Commission is there to deal with small people, the likes of Kapoko, and not the likes of Chiluba or Rupiah and his associates.

The Anti Corruption Commission will just be used by Rupiah to harass political opponents. This is one of the investigative agencies that were tasked by Rupiah to probe and prosecute us for stealing US$ 30 million from state institutions through Zambian Airways.

To date they have not come up with any evidence showing that a dime, a cent or a ngwee was stolen by us from any institution through Zambian Airways. But together with their friends in the police and the Drug Enforcement Commission, they have failed to tell Rupiah and the Zambian people that their boss lied, there was no money whatsoever stolen by us. All that they do is to issue press statements or hold press briefings claiming their investigations have reached an advanced stage.

They do this so repeatedly whenever Rupiah is under political pressure from us or others over his unending corruption schemes. Is this surely an institution that can be relied on by the Zambian people to fight plunderers of the Chiluba type? Not all.

But they shouldn't forget that wise Bemba saying: umulandu tau bola. They are in power today and they can shield or defend each other; they can clear each other of all sorts of crimes. But they won't be in power forever, they won't be on top forever because life is like a big wheel: the one who is at the top, tomorrow is at the bottom.

These matters will be rightly prosecuted; Chiluba will not go scot-free. If anything, those who are today protecting him and securing his freedom will tomorrow be prosecuted with him. They should learn from what is happening in other parts of the world. They shouldn't think, as Sauzande used to say: "Those are those, me I am another."

Today former French president Jacques Chirac has been ordered to stand trial in an alleged corruption scandal dating back from his tenure as Paris mayor in 1977 to 1995.

A magistrate has ordered Chirac to stand trial on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust. The investigating magistrate has been probing whether people in Chirac's circle were given sham jobs as advisors and paid by the Paris City Hall, even though they weren't working for it. Suspicions of corruption and nepotism, mostly dating from his time as mayor, dogged Chirac's presidency.

But while judges closed in on those in Chirac's circle - his former Prime Minister Alain Juppe was convicted of party financing irregularities in 2004 - Chirac long used his presidential immunity to keep investigators at arm's length. After Chirac left the presidency and no longer had immunity, a judge filed preliminary embezzlement charges against him in 2007.

And living in a country where the rule of law prevails, Chirac, although maintaining his innocence, has made it very clear that he is not above the law. Here Rupiah thinks a president is above the law and cannot be sent to prison because there isn't even a suitable prison for a former president. We have enough prisons. The law does not prescribe a special prison for a former president.

We should not fall into the trap, the foolish practice of overlooking bad behaviour on the part of a president or other prominent people. We will pay dearly for doing so in future.

We should at all times ensure that justice is the same for everyone instead of letting off the hook scoundrels who have abused the high offices they had occupied and the public trust they had betrayed.

Rupiah's government is a corrupt one; it is a government that defends corruption and corrupt people. It is also a government that does not only stop at not prosecuting the corrupt but it also persecutes the innocent in addition to denying them justice.

In Rupiah's eyes Chiluba is innocent despite the London High Court judgment that was secured by a government he was part of that is demanding him to pay back to the Zambian people more than US$ 45 million.

But this same Rupiah sees us as thieves who have stolen from state institutions when he himself has no evidence whatsoever about such wrongdoing on our part. This is the man the Zambian people are being made to believe will fight corruption on their behalf! Rupiah can't fight corruption because he is part of it. How can he fight against himself?

Those who want to fight corruption in this country should not rely on Rupiah and the institutions under his control. There is need to seek new avenues, new ways of continuing the fight against corruption because those which were there have been closed.

Labels: CHILUBA, CORRUPTION, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 6:22 AM