Maravi

Ministers and the fear of losing their jobs

Ministers and the fear of losing their jobs
By Editor
Fri 26 Mar. 2010, 04:00 CAT

THE holding of public office should be motivated by intrinsically noble aspirations, by ideals of justice and equity.

If this is lost or is not possible, one should not hold public office for a second longer. A politician holding public office should passionately believe in what he does. And his enthusiasm should move wills. Those holding public office should welcome debate. In fact, they should require it, encourage it.

And they should be prepared to discuss with anyone; they should be very respectful of their interlocutors. Those who hold public office should be very cultured, and the only things they should detest are bad faith and hatred.

Nobody should be in public office, even for a second, because of ambition or pleasure. They should hold office for only one reason – fulfilling a duty to the Zambian people; they should only hold public office for a single purpose, which is to serve the cause of our people.

And if you are a politician you must be prepared to suffer for your principles.

Politicians must follow the dictates of their conscience irrespective of the consequences which might overtake them for it. If a politician’s attitude is to do things which are going to please his community and human beings, then he is likely to last longer in politics and be of value to his people. To go to bed feeling you have done some service to the community is very important. The important thing is to give happiness to people. And therefore the mark of good political leaders is the ability to understand the context in which they are operating and act accordingly. And more often than not, an epoch creates and nurtures the individuals who are associated with its twists and turns; who cohere the wishes and aspirations of the people.

There are men and women chosen to bring happiness into the hearts of people – those are the good political leaders, the good government officials. But it’s always important to bear in mind that the ways in which we will achieve our goals are bound by context, changing with circumstances even while remaining steadfast in our commitment to our vision. It is always better to live and work in a way that respects and enhances the lives of others. Too many have suffered for the love of justice and there is no easy walk to justice.

Chrispine Musosha is certainly not a model politician for our people. But today this humble deputy minister has taken a position that deserves emulation.

Musosha has stood by his platitudes despite being threatened with dismissal from his position as deputy minister. He has not in any way repudiated what he believes in and said. He says he is ready to be fired by Rupiah Banda from his position of deputy minister and he has no problem with that. Musosha is not a rich man but he’s ready to lose the benefits and privileges of being a deputy minister. This contrasts very well with the unprincipled and mercenary position taken by Michael Kaingu who sees his ministerial job as everything and he’s ready to reduce himself to the status of a dog if that helps him to keep the benefits and privileges that go with holding the office of minister. Whereas Kaingu is ready to grovel before Rupiah whom he sees as his master, Musosha is ready to be fired rather than reduce himself to the status of a dog to keep the public office he is holding at the discretion of Rupiah.

Musosha’s position may seem nothing in countries where politicians resign from public office if they disagree fundamentally with the positions being taken by those wielding more power in government. But here, it is something very big because it is very rare that people leave public office because of disagreement over policy direction or the conduct of the affairs of government. Here they have to be fired. But even when this happens, they still find it hard to accept because holding public office means more than an opportunity for them to serve the Zambian people, but a source of livelihood, an opportunity for self-enrichment, even a chance to plunder the resources of their poor people and abuse their people in all sorts of ways.

And this is why to such politicians loyalty to the president, the appointing authority, the one who makes them ministers – fake, superficial as it may be – takes precedence over obligations to the people.

We have very few politicians of the George Mpombo type who can resign public office with very little money in their pockets, with their total wealth fitting in the pocket of the shirt they are wearing. Such people, whatever their other weaknesses or defects, deserve our respect. Mpombo left government on his own out of disagreement with the way Rupiah and his friends were running the affairs of our country. They tried to find ways to scandalise him but they failed to stick any dirt on his character and conduct. Again, politicians of that type deserve our respect and support. Mpombo may not be rich in material terms, but that man is much richer spiritually than all these crooks that masquerade to be staunch Christians, followers of Christ, when they are nothing but shameless thieves. We say this because being a Christian means being like Christ. Now, Jesus Christ was humble, most pure, poor, meek: how can His disciple and imitator be dishonest, be a thief, a plunderer, arrogant, angry and greedy? We can only remind them of what Alexander The Great once said to a soldier who also had the same name but was sluggish, mean and cowardly: “Either change your name or change your behaviour.”

It’s not difficult to understand why politicians and other people who take the position that Musosha and Mpombo have taken are subjected to such bad treatment, to such hatred; why there’s a permanent quest to bring them down.

Our own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum.

Good governance will only come to our country when we manage to put into public office honest and humble leaders who see politics as a vocation to serve the people and not as a job for them to enrich themselves. Most of our ministers and other politicians today don’t see politics as a vocation to serve. They may say this as a matter of political rhetoric, but in their hearts of hearts they see their holding of public office as an opportunity to earn a good salary and enjoy other benefits that go with it and if possible enrich themselves corruptly. Such politicians cannot be expected to take positions that are sensible, that are intelligent and that conform to the interests, desires and aspirations of their people. Their loyalty will never lie with the people but with those who give them the opportunity to fill up their pockets. In this case they will go down like dogs before anyone who appoints them to such jobs and keeps them there, regardless of how useless and treacherous that person may be to the people they are elected to serve.

No individual, no matter what merits they possess, should be elevated above the people. There’s a tendency in this country to elevate the presidency above everybody else and everything else. But if one has a true measure of the power of people as individuals, they will realise that it’s so fragile and such a small thing that it really doesn’t make sense to magnify the role of any individual, no matter how intelligent, brilliant or able they may be. Humans make a fool of themselves when they start to think too much about their self-importance.

We think politicians like Mpombo and Musosha are defending certain principles that are of tremendous value at a time of confusion and opportunism in our country, a time when many politicians are feathering their own nests, are ready to stoop down to the status of dogs, a time when we might call the deification of political power. And for this, they deserve more and more of our respect and support. We need politicians who can stand up and defend what they believe in and not hungry dogs that blindly follow anyone with a plate of food no matter how bad that food may be. We need politicians who are ready to make sacrifices to prove their platitudes.

Labels: CHRISPINE MUSOSHA, GEORGE MPOMBO, MICHAEL KAINGU, RED CARD CAMPAIGN, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 3:32 PM