Corruption in public procurement

Corruption in public procurement
By Editor
Fri 27 Nov. 2009, 04:00 CAT

Public procurement is one of the main sources of corruption in this country.
The problems our country is today facing in many sectors are as a result of corruption in public procurement.

Even the fuel shortages we are today facing and the relatively high prices that we are paying for petroleum products is as a result of corruption in public procurement. This is a fact that was even acknowledged by Rupiah Banda himself three weeks ago on November 11, when he said: “...there are a lot of vested interests in the procurement of fuel. Of course there are vested interests and they get upset that we may be interfering with what they have been doing all along.”

But what Rupiah did not tell the nation is who is behind these vested interests that have caused the nation these shortages of fuel. Rupiah knows very well who is involved in the procurement of fuel but he doesn’t seem prepared to tell the nation who these people are and what they are doing that is causing us problems.

Why? It is simply because he will be opening a Pandora’s box. We say this because some of those vested interests come very close to him, so close that he himself may be personally accused of vested interests in the procurement of fuel.

And as long as these opportunities for those in power and those connected to them exist to make huge amounts of money through public procurement, problems will be there in every sector. Today the Zambian people are paying the highest prices for fuel in the region simply because of corruption in the procurement system. Equally, the Zambian people are paying relatively high prices for mealie-meal because of corruption in the procurement of fertilisers and other farming inputs that make the production of maize expensive.

For instance, why should the Zambian government contract private individuals to supply fertilisers when we have the Food Reserve Agency, Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia and the Zambia National Farmers Union, among other credible institutions, to supply fertilisers to our farmers at reasonable prices?

And the profits that these institutions would make would indeed go a long way to improve agriculture in the future because they would eventually pass on the benefits to our farmers and to the consumers, a thing these individuals, these briefcase suppliers will never do.

It will be very difficult to sort out the issue of fuel supplies and high prices if this corrupt system of public procurements is not addressed.

And the consequences of tolerating this type of corruption are not small. In the end, our industries – agriculture, transportation, mining and so on and so forth – will not be able to compete with their counterparts in the region and indeed in the whole world because our production costs will continue to escalate, making our products too expensive. In the end very little, if not nothing, other than copper will be exported from this country.

It will be very difficult to curb corruption in public procurements if our laws and attitudes are not drastically altered. Today we have a president who doesn’t see anything wrong with his family members being the suppliers of GMO maize to the Zambian people.

We have a president who doesn’t see anything wrong with his son being involved with RP Capital to acquire contracts to render questionable services to the government for which they are paid millions of dollars without even following proper tender procedures. It will not be wrong for anyone to accuse the President of this country of being indirectly involved in public procurement contracts through his sons, relatives and friends.

Who in this country doesn’t know that public procurement contracts are the main source for kick-backs for those in government and one of the main sources of finance for the ruling party? When one looks at the road maintenance contracts, most of the tenders have gone to people connected to those in power and the ruling party. And it is through these characters that those in power and their party fundraise.

It will not be possible to fight corruption in government if we have wrong practices that are legally and otherwise permissible for those who work in government, for those who lead government institutions and their associates. Today most of the public procurement contracts go to people who are public servants through their agents or associates or to those who give them commissions or kickbacks of one sort or another. The biggest business in this country is the supply of goods and services to government.

And this is under the control of those in power. Those who control government, as we saw in the Dora Siliya and RP Capital case, have their way in these matters. How else can one explain what Dora did in the RP Capital’s contract and Rupiah’s son Henry’s involvements with RP Capital in the same transaction? The same can be said also about the involvement of Dalbit, an unknown Kenyan company, that has been assisted directly by State House and Rupiah’s family to get a contract to supply fuel to Zambia.

One would not be wrong to link the first lady’s safari holiday to Kenya to these characters and their transactions. One would not be wrong to assume it was them who paid for the charter plane that took the first lady to Kenya for her safari holiday when her husband was enjoying himself watching naked young girls paraded before him by his royal Swazi host.

As long as this type of business continues, corruption will not stop in this country. This is why we have everyone from president to cleaner in government trying to be a supplier of this and that to state institutions – directly or indirectly. There is too much vested interests by those running government in everything that they can get money from.

In short, what we are trying to say is that this system is reeking of corruption in every pore; it is inherently corrupt and serves no other better purpose than to enrich those with the appropriate control of government institutions or those with the necessary connections.

For this reason, the observations made by the Parliamentary Committee on Communications, Transport, Works and Supply deserve serious considerations by our legislators, all our leaders and all our people. This committee told Parliament that there is rampant corruption in the public procurement process and that as a result of this, the government is spending more than necessary; sometimes the works procured cost three times higher than the normal price and the advice of professionals is ignored.

We saw this in the issue of Dora and RP Capital where professional advice was ignored and the Zambian taxpayer paid millions of dollars for a service that was questionable.

This is not a public procurement system that will serve the needs of our people well, diligently and with frugality. It is not a system that will help us run government business in an efficient, effective, orderly and honest manner.

It is not a system that will help us develop a meaningful, progressive and honest interaction between government and the private sector. We cannot build a strong private sector on the threshold of such a corrupt public procurement system.

There is a serious problem with any system where the people who are supposed to protect public resources, government funds by ensuring that activities such as public procurement are done transparently and in an accountable way are the ones who are mooting schemes to loot the treasury through all sorts of questionable contracts. How can one be a controller, a referee, a monitor and a player at the same time?

This is what the activities of those in government insofar as public procurement is concerned amount to. This means that the planning of government activities is not consistently driven by the interests of the people but by those of the public servants who are in control of government machinery.

This is surely not a recipe for governing well. It is a recipe for unbridled corruption, veritable chaos and anarchy in the country. If this continues, at the end of the President’s term of office, there will be presidential immunity lifted to pave way for arrests and prosecutions.

If this continues, when the life of this government comes to an end, there will be another Task Force to prosecute Rupiah, his sons and others connected to him. The only way to avoid this is to change things so that government business is conducted in a transparent and honest manner.