Maravi

Auditor General’s report on our roads

Auditor General’s report on our roads
By The Editor
Wed 14 Apr. 2010, 04:00 CAT

HOODWINKING people as a style of leadership is destined for doom. This is something that Rupiah Banda and those that earn their living by misleading him should learn very quickly.

Sugar daddy politics will not take them anywhere. Running to make all sorts of announcements when there are elections may seem like a good strategy to them but ultimately it leads them nowhere. It is not long ago that there was a by-election in Solwezi in North Western Province.

Rupiah and his minions rushed there to make all sorts of promises. This is something that they shamelessly keep doing. Are they going to take development only to areas where there happens to be a by-election?

The problems that our country faces in terms of infrastructure and roads in particular are vast and complicated. A fire brigade response to such a complicated issue is unlikely to yield any meaningful and lasting results.

The fire brigade normally only responds when there’s a fire. This mode of operation cannot be used to deal with the complex problem of roads in our country. Rushing to announce this or that road project when there’s a by-election or general elections for that matter is nonsensical.

Our people deserve a government that is determined to serve them and ready to develop long-term plans that ensure that the infrastructure challenges that our nation faces are addressed in an incremental and yet definitive fashion.

There has to be a true commitment to service delivery. Priority must be given to ensuring that when such contracts are given, the same are given in the most productive and cost-effective way.

The gunpoint manner in which Rupiah seems to want to deal with the roads issue only serves to open the system to abuse. Why should we want to deal with roads as if we are buying shoes or some other mundane item?

Our people have for a long time now been subjected to permanent fuel tax that is meant to operate as a road levy. Where does this money go? How well have the agencies tasked to deal with this area managed these public resources?

Where is the Auditor General’s report on the road sector? Why is Rupiah having problems allowing this report to be made public? It does not make sense to start calling for more funds to be thrown into the roads when no acceptable account has been given for the money that has been spent so far. Have we as a nation gotten value for money?

Is there somebody in government, or indeed the road agencies who is helping themselves to the public resources meant to deliver quality roads to our people?
This interest in road contracts may appear designed to deliver service to our people but we have reason to think that this system is being abused and has provided fertile ground for corruption and plunder of public resources. Rupiah’s announcement and directive to the minister of finance instead of serving to provide quality roads that will last for a long time is opening an opportunity for the plunder of public resources.

We say this because there’s no doubt that a lot of money has been allocated for the maintenance and building of roads in our country but it does not seem that all the money meant for our roads is going to maintaining these roads. Who is chewing this money?

Is Rupiah ignorant about the plunder that is going on in the road sector? What is he doing about it? Does he have people that he wants to protect?

The announcements about the requirements for more money in the road sector is an attempt to divert attention from the rot that is going on in that sector. It is clear that some people never learn from history.

There were people in Chiluba’s government, including Chiluba himself who thought they could abuse the system and get away with it because of the positions that they occupied and the protection that they thought they had from the presidency. But what happened? Chiluba and his tandem of thieves have been exposed for what they are.

This is likely to happen to those who today think they can abuse the system, steal money meant for roads and get away with it. They think they can get away with getting bribes and all sorts of illicit payments from road contractors.

But it won’t be long before they regret the day when they learnt to take bribes. It is now common knowledge that our roads are routinely being constructed in a substandard way deliberately because of the involvement of the people who are supposed to protect public interests in this matter.

It won’t be long before these people and all those who are protecting them are called to account. Our people have spent too much money for too many years without seeing the equivalent return. This is why we ask the question – where is the Auditor General’s report? Why is the government sitting on it? They know the rot they have presided over.

This is why they are too scared to let the public know what they have been doing in their name. The road sector has become a giant discretionary fund which they use to do all sorts of criminal things.

Some contractors are so incompetent and do not even employ engineers but for some reason they keep getting government road contracts. What kind of madness is this? No! This is not madness. It is simply criminal. People know what they are doing. It is deliberate.

It is against this background that Rupiah’s directive to the minister for finance needs to be weighed. They are failing to be transparent about the rottenness that has gone on in the road sector and now they want to spend more money without transparency.

What is more annoying is the fact that Rupiah will have no qualms about condemning his country to more debt in the name of building roads when in fact the evidence on the ground suggests that public resources are wantonly being abused in the name of the road sector.

This is the same government that is at the same time refusing to adequately tax the mining sector to raise public resources for necessary public works. There’s something very seriously wrong about Rupiah’s interest in building more roads while refusing to take stock of the wastage that has gone on in this sector. Our people deserve to know who is stealing their money.

They also deserve to receive justice. This is something that won’t go away. Those who have been stealing should know that a day of reckoning is coming.

Campaign slogans and meaningless pronouncements about taking development to the people are not going to hoodwink anyone. The people deserve to know what the Auditor General has found in the road sector audit. Where is the Auditor General’s report on our roads?

Labels: AUDITOR GENERAL, CORRUPTION, INFRASTRUCTURE

posted by MrK @ 6:11 AM