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Rupiah hasn’t been serious with corruption fight - Inonge Wina

Rupiah hasn’t been serious with corruption fight - Inonge Wina
By Chibaula Silwamba
Fri 01 Jan. 2010, 04:01 CAT

PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda's government has not been serious with the fight against corruption in 2009, Patriotic Front (PF) national chairperson Inonge Wina has charged.

In an interview, Wina challenged the government not to be discriminatory in the prosecution of corruption cases.

“There are big challenges in that area on the way the government of President Rupiah Banda is addressing the issues of corruption. I think the public perception is that the government does not seem to be serious about fighting corruption. Why do people perceive it this way? I think it's because they have seen some court reversals in cases where people who were accused of certain corrupt practices are being blessed by the government official and the way the government has not honoured the verdicts of court in some areas regarding corruption,” Wina said.

Asked if she was referring to the judgment of former president Frederick Chiluba, Wina responded: “Yes! There has been a public outcry regarding the verdict on the Chiluba case.”
She said the government should have left the case to run according to what the courts had determined particularly the London High Court judgment regarding Chiluba.

“Government seemed to interfere instead of listening to what people were saying and instead of waiting for the final outcome of the case, the government intervened too quickly. This has not been taken kindly by the ordinary people. Really in the fight against corruption, we need to be more firm, government need to take action where action is needed,” Wina said. “Government should not interfere with institutions that are created to tackle corruption such as the Anti Corruption Commission, the DPP's office. The DPP's office is the public human rights defender and if that office is compromised then we are in trouble. The issue of corruption must be faced squarely. The law should not be discriminatory between those who have and those who do not.”

On women empowerment, Wina observed that the government was making public statements regarding the many international and regional commitments that Zambia had agreed to be part of but the actual practical implementation was still failing to take root.

“Now we are approaching the 2011 elections, what deliberate steps are there by our government to make sure that there will be more women who will be participating in the coming elections,” Wina said. “How many women have benefited from the Citizens' Economic Empowerment programme? How many young people who are eager to start their own business or grow their businesses have benefited from the CEEC? Is this programme meant to benefit those who already have or those who want to emerge from trap of poverty?”
On the economy, Wina said Zambians had not been badly affected by the global economic downturn.

“There has been some improvement in the management of the economy in that Zambia has not fared badly because of the world economic downturn,” Wina said. “However, at the same time that has not been reflected in the change in the people's lives. The service delivery in various sectors has not been very impressive. For me until the economic benefits can be felt by the ordinary poor person that is when I will say government has made some progress.”
On health and education, Wina said service delivery was shoddy.

“The service delivery in the health sector we have had problems, marred by massive strikes by health workers - nurses and some doctors - that ended with the persecution of those who were highlighting this national problem and persecution of those who exposed the hardships that the Zambian public was going through because of the strike,” Wina said. “Service delivery particularly in the education sector leaves much to be desired.”
On agriculture, Wina said there has not been progress.

“The agriculture sector, we are yet to see the results of the agriculture fertiliser support programme from the harvest that will be realised next year. We have not really made success of this programme,” she said. “I am yet to see how many poor farmers have benefited from this scale and have and successfully graduated to a higher level of productivity. As it is we are still getting the same stories of corruption in the distribution of the agricultural inputs. Really the country has a lot to do, we need to work harder.”

On the environment, Wina bemoaned the government's lack of commitment to address the deforestation and sustain the Keep Zambia Campaign.

“We have a problem of deforestation and the government has no policy to address the problem of cutting of trees,” Wina said.

She said there were disparities in earnings among various groups of workers.

“It's during this year that we have seen the massive disbursements of resources being shared among the powerful in terms of the getting of gratuities by our law makers and the earnings that are being earned by some of the Zambians. I find that the disparity is too high,” said Wina.

Labels: INONGE WINA, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 10:26 AM