Rupiah has a lot to learn

Rupiah has a lot to learn
By Editor
Mon 30 Nov. 2009, 04:00 CAT

One of the tragedies of life is that people rarely learn from the mistakes of others.
It is often said that experience is the best teacher.

It seems humans want to commit their own mistakes before they learn. This is tragic. We say this because it will be so much easier if we could all learn from history and the mistakes of others and avoid doing the things that led to those mistakes.

Learning from the experiences of others is a much cheaper and better alternative to making the same costly mistakes. But learning from others requires humility and a correct assessment of oneself. Pompous people who are invariably dishonest are not able or willing to learn from the mistakes of others because they think they are clever and better than anybody else.

When Rupiah Banda became President, he had three previous presidents to learn from. Rupiah's predecessors had both positive and negative lessons to impart. Rupiah had a choice to make, he could either learn from the experiences of his predecessors and avoid some of the pitfalls into which they fell or chart his own course.

Rupiah has chosen to chart his own disastrous course, he is not prepared to learn from the mistakes of his predecessors. If anything, Rupiah is embracing some of the worst vices that characterised the presidency of Frederick Chiluba.

Chiluba's presidency has a lot of lessons for any leader who is determined to avoid the pitfalls and evil trappings of power.

Chiluba after having been handed a popular mandate chose to abuse public trust and gave in to a lot of excesses that come with power. Chiluba did not want to have anybody near him who criticised his leadership or worse still anyone who pointed out the shortcomings of his leadership style.

He purged the MMD and left himself surrounded by those who were prepared to tolerate his despotic rule unquestioningly. Unlike Rupiah who has to face an election in 24 months time, Chiluba had all the time to consolidate his hold on power and silence most of his critics. He managed but where did this lead him?

Chiluba did not have anyone close to him who could stop him from abusing his office when he was determined to do it.

He thought that there was no limit to what he could achieve because of the immense executive power that he wielded. By this time Chiluba had forgotten where the real power lay - with the people. To him his whims and personal preferences began to define the will of the people. Whatever he wanted was what was the will of the people. Arrogance and pomposity charecterised the way he dealt with public affairs.

Chiluba's unchallenged control over all state power and institutions led him to commit one crime after another. It is the excessive hegemony over power that Chiluba enjoyed that led him to steal and abuse public resources.

His personal wishes and desires were called matters of state security upon which public resources could be spent without any restraint. This explains why millions of dollars of public funds were spent on his suits and other articles of clothing. There were no boundaries in the way that Chiluba operated - party matters and state matters were mixed deliberately to facilitate the abuse of public resources.

Public resources were routinely commandeered under the pretext of funding the MMD party political activities when, in fact, Chiluba and his tandem of thieves were busy lining their pockets with public funds. Corruption amongst the higher echelons of public servants was an acceptable form of income supplementation. They could steal and abuse public resources without fearing any legal consequences. Impunity defined the way they ran public affairs. Chiluba was very sure that there would never be a day of reckoning. He did not even bother to do anything to hide his excesses; after all, he was the president.

Contrary to what Chiluba thought, a day of reckoning did come - the will of the people triumphed. Chiluba has been prosecuted for his abuses and many in his tandem of thieves have been convicted.

It is this Chiluba that Rupiah has called a damn good president and gone on to befriend. Rupiah is entitled to choose his own friends but as head of state his choices speak volumes about his character and the way he is running the affairs of the country.
We are not surprised that some of the same noises and allegations of corruption and abuse of public resources that characterised Chiluba's presidency have made a very strong come-back since Rupiah came to power. The same stubborn preparedness to ignore the public that characterised Chiluba is evident in Rupiah. Obviously, Rupiah seems to have learnt some lessons from Chiluba but not very good ones.

This is why the number of scandals that have rocked Rupiah's presidency does not seem to be diminishing; if anything they are on the increase. Many of our people remember that Chiluba started running important economic affairs from State House to the exclusion of state systems that are designed to protect public resources. Those closest to Chiluba became the controllers of all the major decisions about any meaningful public procurements. It is this abuse of power that landed Chiluba in the mess that he is in today.
One would have thought that Rupiah would avoid this pitfall.

But Rupiah has gone a step further, and his family seems intent on benefiting from his tenure as President in every way possible. We doubt whether the civil servants and other public officials who are responsible for public procurements are in a position to make any important decision without the interference of Rupiah and his family.

This state of affairs calls for vigilance amongst all the public officers who are working with Rupiah. They need to ensure that they do correct things and not allow themselves to be sucked into any illegal arrangements. There is need for these friends of ours to learn from the experience of those who worked for Chiluba.

Many of them have been paraded in our courts because of the illegal things they did when they worked for Chiluba. When the day of reckoning comes, it is each one for himself. The people who may have been giving you the instructions to do wrong things will refuse to take responsibility.

This is what has happened with Chiluba and his tandem of thieves. A lot of these people decided to abuse their positions because their boss was abusing his position. But where has that left them today? We know for a fact that some of them deeply regret the things they did against our people whilst working with Chiluba and have come to despise the very man they once considered a hero.

The experience of the Chiluba technocrats should serve as a warning to our friends who have accepted jobs in Rupiah's government. The only safeguard they have is to do the right things. We are not naïve we know that it is difficult for many of these people who work for Rupiah to challenge their appointing authority. Challenging Rupiah or even telling him that something cannot be done because it is wrong may mean losing a job.

We know that some people have already lost jobs for no other reason except trying to do what is right in a government that demands total obedience to instructions whatever they might be.

Losing a job can be a devastating experience. But going to jail because one feared losing a job is even more devastating. It is better to lose a job and pick up the pieces of one’s life thereafter than to do things that could land one in jail simply to keep a job that you could even lose anyway.

We know that many of our people who are working in the public service are working in fear. We feel sorry for our country men and women who have the misfortune of working in the Zambia Public Procurement Authority (ZPPA).

Things must really be tough. It is not easy to work for a government and a president who seems determined to have a hand in every meaningful procurement - their jobs must hang on a very thin thread - they could be fired anytime.

If Rupiah had learnt anything from Chiluba, he would have done everything possible to distance himself and his family from government business. But this does not seem to be the case. Rupiah believes that his family has a right to be involved in government business whilst he is President.

Which public officer is going to deny the president's son a right to government business knowing that the father supports their involvement in business with government? The position Rupiah has taken has opened him to the abuse of the authority of his office, which will land him in trouble.

We know for a fact Rupiah has been facilitating business transactions between government and some of his friends. It is not long ago when we reported that the people who were involved in a tender to supply oil to Zambia were being facilitated by State House and VIP government transport was made available to them when they were in the country to negotiate the deal.

We also know of the LITASCO oil transaction where it seems tender processes are being rigged to favour this company. Rupiah will do well to reflect and stop looking at government as a source of business whilst he is President or else he will land himself in more trouble than even Chiluba did. Rupiah must learn lessons from the mistakes and crimes of Chiluba.