Maravi

Fighting corruption is fighting Rupiah

Fighting corruption is fighting Rupiah
By The Post
Mon 01 Mar. 2010, 07:00 CAT

IT is said that the individual does best in a strong and descent community of people with principles and standards and common aims and values. The individual cannot do well in a society whose standards are those of thieves, plunderers, pirates and crooked elements of all hues.

Today we live in a country where a former president – Frederick Chiluba – who abused his office to steal, plunder, misuse public resources is glorified by those in power, by President Rupiah Banda and his government.

Chiluba today is the man Rupiah thinks can win the election for him next year in the Bemba-speaking areas of our country. And for this reason Rupiah has gone out to justify Chiluba’s innocence and ensure that there’s no appeal in the judgment his government had secured him.

For them it is a question of staying in power, of winning an election at all costs. Principles don’t matter. To them there’s a choice between being principled and unelectable; and electable and unprincipled. For this reason they are prepared to tell lies, manipulate our country’s judicial process and ensure that the little demagogue does not go to prison so that he can campaign for them among the Bemba-speaking people of our country.

Rupiah knows very well that Chiluba stole and abused public resources. There is enough evidence to prove that Chiluba stole and abused the Zambian taxpayers’ money. And Rupiah and his government have in their possession the London High Court judgment that clearly shows how Chiluba and his tandem of thieves stole and abused the very limited financial resources of our people.

Even the case in which Chiluba is said to have been acquitted in our magistrates’ court does show clearly that this little man is nothing but a thief, a crook, a plunderer. But Rupiah and his friends have chosen not to see all this because it doesn’t fit in their scheme of things.

Where there’s theft, abuse and plunder, they pretend to be seeing innocence. Why? The answer is very simple: it is either they share Chiluba’s view of life, a life of crookedness, theft, abuse and plunder or they want to do or are doing exactly what Chiluba did. How else can one explain Rupiah’s attitude towards Chiluba’s corruption?

This is a rotten government with rotten attitudes and standards. What is also sad is that Rupiah thinks Zambians are fools who cannot see what he and his friend Chiluba are up to. The Zambian people can see that they are up to no good. It will be difficult for Rupiah to convince anyone that he is against corruption, that he is not for corruption, that he is not running a corrupt government – when his is a government that defends corrupt deeds or practices.

And Goodwell Lungu, the executive director of Transparency International Zambia puts it aptly when he says: “It has now become fashionable for crooks to speak freely as the environment is becoming conducive for them and dangerous for genuine citizens who want to fight corruption.”

Truly, anyone who genuinely wants to fight corruption in this country automatically becomes an enemy of Rupiah. In fact, this can be used as the scale for measuring corruption. The closer one is to Rupiah, the higher they are likely to be on the corruption index. The more hated one is by Rupiah the less they are likely to weigh on the corruption scale.

There is no honest and decent government that can embrace a crook like Chiluba, a man who has stolen public funds, and make him one of the president’s best friends. Any government that does that is without disquisition a corrupt one. And so far, apart from embracing a corrupt element like Chiluba, there are many pointers to the fact that Rupiah, like his friend, is also running a corrupt government.

If things continue this way, it is highly likely that Rupiah will end up in the same way as Chiluba unless another corrupt government like his comes up in a similar style and fashion to rescue him.

This is not the way to run a country. These are not the standards that will take our country forward as a descent, just, fair and humane nation.

Today they are doing everything possible to launder Chiluba as an innocent man when they know very well that he is a thief. Even descent human beings like Dr Kenneth Kaunda are being made to mingle with this little evil and corrupt man so that people see him as clean.

But there is no comparison between Chiluba and Dr Kaunda. Noone in this world can produce evidence of any ngwee or cent, kwacha or dollar that was stolen from public coffers by Dr Kaunda. But there is abundance of evidence of Chiluba’s thefts.

And this is the man Rupiah is trying to push down our throats. No descent Zambian will swallow this because they know very well how poisonous Chiluba’s corruption is. Chiluba is reeking with corruption, crookedness and vanity in every pore. But this is Rupiah’s friend, his campaign manager among the Bemba-speaking people.

Clearly, those who are looking for clean leaders, for honest politicians cannot go where Chiluba is occupying an honourable reservation. Those who see incorruptibility as the essence of self-respect cannot respect Chiluba and those who glorify him.

The political, moral, ethical and otherwise standards of Chiluba are too low for anyone to use them to propel our nation to higher heights. As a result of this, one can easily conclude that Rupiah is not taking this country anywhere but to disaster, to a higher plateau of corruption and injustice. Actually, the methods of Chiluba and Rupiah are very similar. Their levels of intolerance are not different.

Today Rupiah’s government is paying a lot of money to compensate people who were unfairly, unjustly and inhumanly treated by Chiluba. Chiluba was not only a thief but a gross violator of human rights. And the Zambian taxpayer is today paying huge sums of money to people whose human rights were violated by Chiluba. And this is Rupiah’s friend, his political commissar among the humble and poor Bemba speaking people of our country. What a joke this is! What an insult this is!

Levy Mwanawasa had offered Chiluba a very good deal: “Return even 75 per cent of what you have stolen and you will be forgiven.” Today Chiluba is being forgiven by Rupiah, through the backdoor, without returning to the Zambian people even a fraction of a percentage of what he stole from them; not even a fraction of a percentage of what the Zambian government secured through the London High Court judgement. Is this acceptable?

Even in the Holy Bible we are told: “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed” (James 5:16). Contrition, remorse, apologising are the conditions for forgiveness not only between us and God, but also between people. Stealing from the poor in order to enrich oneself is serious injustice. To rob the poor is to deprive them of life and honour.

We cannot think of a more contemptible man – our power of imagination fails us to bring to our minds’ eyes a more despicable man than the man who steals from the poor.

And any person who tries to defend such a man to help himself, is breeding the seeds of an anarchy and a dissatisfaction more disastrous to the welfare of the nation than any other teaching that we can think of, because, at least, the wildest tyrant may at least be sincere in his own heart. Chiluba is a man as low and as mean as we can picture.

Forgiveness is easy when the violators see the pain they have caused us and sincerely apologise for their wrongdoing. The trouble is that they may not always apologise. Chiluba has refused to realise and acknowledge his corruption and its consequences on us as a people.

We have no doubt Chiluba knows the consequences of what he has done, but he is too crooked, too proud to apologise. But he is forgetting the truth that admitting a wrong is a sign of greatness.

This being the situation, the Zambian people have no alternative but to struggle against Chiluba and his friends to save their country from the reign of crooks and corruption. All Zambians of goodwill need to be vigilant and defend the values of their country.

We need to return this country to the moral standards required of our politicians, to the levels of honesty in public life as set by Dr Kaunda and his comrades. In a new time and in a new way we have to restore that concept of politics and public service where those who choose to serve others are not there to cheat, deceive, plunder or rob them but to contribute to the happiness of the nation.

This cannot be done with Rupiah because he has proved himself to be an ardent defender, promoter and justifier of corruption. In fighting corruption, Zambians have to look elsewhere because in doing so Rupiah sees them as fighting him. In fighting corruption you are fighting Rupiah’s friends and he has shown a very high propensity to join on the side of his corrupt friends.

Any corrupt person you fight in this country is Rupiah’s friend – fighting corruption in Zambia is fighting against Rupiah.

Labels: CHILUBA, CORRUPTION, GOODWELL LUNGU, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 3:45 PM