Every Zambian should fight corruption – Pande

Every Zambian should fight corruption – Pande
By Chiwoyu Sinyangwe
Sun 13 Dec. 2009, 04:01 CAT

FOREIGN affairs minister Kabinga Pande has blamed bad publicity for the growing perception that the government under President Rupiah Banda has backtracked on the fight against corruption.

Speaking when he received credentials from the new country manager for the African Development Bank (AfDB) Freddie Kwesiga, Pande said the government was still committed to the fight against corruption as well as upholding good governance.

Pande warned that corruption had the potential to cause chaos in the country, apart from derailing progress.

“The government is so much determined. We believe that without good governance rules or activities, we can’t get anywhere,” Pande said.

“The most talked about issues of corruption. Some people, there has been some quarters who believe that the government has slackened. I can assure that we haven’t. We have not at any point gone backwards or…we are looking forward. It is only that if there is somebody who wants to paint a wrong picture on an individual and that person is louder than others, the perception that will be is that ‘yes what this person is saying is true.’ But the truth is we are determined as a government even as individual ministers that we uphold the fight against corruption.”

Pande said the recent success the country had recorded was due to the strong stance against graft.

“Because all the successes that Zambia has scored, it’s because we have been fighting corruption. We know what corruption can do to a country. Corruption can derail the country,” he said.

“Corruption can cause chaos in the country. You will be going steps backwards…if you have moved two steps going forward, you will be moving four steps backwards when you start getting involved in corruption.”

He called on Zambians to participate in the fight against corruption and not just restrict the campaigns to public officials.

“Corruption is a scourge that should be fought by everybody. Again, my appeal to all Zambians is that all Zambians should be involved in the fight against corruption,” said Pande. “When we are looking at corruption, we should not just look at leadership of the country. Every Zambian it should be his or her concern to ensure that corruption is fought whether in its private institutions or government, whether it is in our homes, schools. We are determined under President Rupiah Banda. I can assure that there is nothing like slackening in the fight against corruption and we would want to uphold good governance issues. When you are in a society, there is always one, two, three bad seeds and that should not be generalised to mean the government has lost in the determinations.”

Pande also urged AfDB not to hesitate to ‘constructively’ criticise when they felt the government was going out of track.

And Kwesiga said AfDB was focusing on issues of good governance as it extended funding to the private sector in infrastructure projects.
Kwesiga said AfDB was looking at funding the upgrade of the Luangwa, Chipata Muchinji road to connect the area to Nakara Corridor, the Kazungula Bridge and possibilities of upgrading the facilities at Mpulungu Port.

“The bank will continue engaging the Zambian government in infrastructure areas so that you can develop the capacity as you know, you are a landlocked country…,” said Kwesiga.