Maravi

Highly educated plunderers

Highly educated plunderers
By Editor
Mon 15 Feb. 2010, 04:00 CAT

THE highest level of political thought was reached when some men became aware that no man had the right to rob others, to exploit others, to abuse others, and that the fruits of the efforts and intelligence of each human being should reach all others; that man really had no need to be a wolf, but could be a brother to man.

This is the main essence of what Dr Caleb Fundanga, the governor of our central bank – the Bank of Zambia, is saying. And we salute all those who have arrived at these stimulating convictions that Dr Fundanga is expressing.

Dr Fundanga says the educated have often abused their privileged position to steal public resources instead of rendering services.

“We don’t want a situation where because you have an MBA, you are given a job, then you start stealing from the very organisation. Your role is to advance society, not to take away from the organisations. I am saying this because quite often, it is educated Zambians who have let this country down.

The peasants and lowly paid workers have got no chance of stealing because they are not in positions where they can steal. It is people who are privileged with senior positions who are responsible for pilfering. This must stop…Ensure that those plunderers are kicked out of our system so that the little that we have can go a long way towards addressing the problems of our poor brothers and sisters,” observes Dr Fundanga with boundless sense of responsibility. We must learn this spirit because with it, every educated person in this country can be very useful to the people.

A man’s ability may be great or small, but if he has this spirit, he is already noble-minded and pure, a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests, a man who is of value to the people. And Dr Fundanga further adds that the country needs professionals with high levels of social and moral awareness so that they are aware of the moral obligations and potential impact of thinking, decisions as well as actions of the well-being of the country.

“We need to be good role models for others in behaviour, attitude as well as relations. Let us endeavour to act in a way that is professional and retain the confidence of others,” Dr Fundanga advises the educated.

What Dr Fundanga is saying is very correct, is very valid because when one looks at the people who are today facing corruption and abuse of office charges in our courts of law, they are all very highly educated people who held very senior positions in various institutions of our country. Look at how a highly educated and intelligent person like Faustin Kabwe abused his intelligence and put himself at the centre of the worst forms of corruption in our country. Kabwe used his education to turn himself into the kingpin of almost every corrupt deal in this country. Look at the other people – top generals from our military, bankers, senior public officers.

If you are honest, truly honest, you won’t be corrupted. If you are unassuming and have a clear understanding of the worth of people and of yourself, you won’t be corrupted.

Our country is not flourishing. The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nation is not being used sensibly. We are wasting the limited resources available to our people by stealing and squandering them.

But all this is still not the main problem. The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore each other, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, honesty, incorruptibility as the essence of self-respect, compassion or humility lost their depth and dimensions, and for many of us, they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray sayings from ancient times.

When we talk about contaminated moral atmosphere, we are not only talking about the educated people who are in court today for corruption or those who have been convicted for stealing public funds or abusing their offices. We are talking about all of us who have gone to school, who have received some high education. We have all become used to the corrupt system, to the system of abusing public resources to enrich ourselves, to the system of using our offices, manipulating things to enrich ourselves at the expense of the people we are employed to serve. And we have accepted this as an unchangeable fact and thus helping to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all – though naturally to differing extents – responsible for the operation of this corrupt system; none of us is just its victim: we are all also its co-creators.

Why do we say this? It would be very unreasonable to understand the sad corrupt legacy of the last 18 years as something alien, which some distant relative bequeathed us. On the contrary, we have to accept this corrupt legacy as a sin we committed against ourselves. If we accept it as such, we will understand that it is up to us all, and up to us only, to do something about it.

Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament, the best president, the best civil servants and public workers, cannot achieve much on their own. And it would also be wrong to expect a general remedy from them only. This calls for the participation of all of us and therefore responsibility from us all.

If we realise this, then all the corruption we are today battling with will cease to appear so terrible. If we realise this, hope will return to our hearts. Let us strive in a new time and in a new way to use our education to the benefit of our people. Let us teach ourselves and others that to acquire high education should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community, of the nation rather than of a need to cheat, rob or rape the community, the nation. Let us teach ourselves and others that our high education can be used to improve ourselves, our country and the world we live in. Let us dream of a country that is economically prosperous and yet socially just; of a humane nation which serves the individual and which therefore holds the hope that the individual will serve it in turn and not rape it. Let us dream of a republic of well-rounded people, because without such it is impossible to solve any of our problems, human, economic, ecological, social, or political.

Let us strive to establish an education system that develops in each person a respect for others and recognition of civic responsibilities. We say this because proper education means developing the faculties of a person’s mind, heart and body in such a way that the person will gradually be prepared to take one’s place in society as a useful citizen and not as a robber, plunderer or bandit. Authentic education should be based on the conviction that there is more to truth than mere facts. It articulates and facilitates growth in the appreciation of truth and justice.

Genuine education addresses the whole person – creative, critical, intellectual, moral, physical and spiritual dimensions. Education must challenge a person to act in the name of justice, fairness and humaneness.

Our education policy must enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally, intellectually and physically and become a citizen with a progressive, honest and incorruptible outlook or consciousness.

Labels: CALEB FUNDANGA, CORRUPTION

posted by MrK @ 4:02 PM