Maravi

Stealing from the sick is the worst form of corruption

Stealing from the sick is the worst form of corruption
By Editor
Wed 16 June 2010, 04:00 CAT

The affairs of our country are being managed by very cruel and selfish people.
We used to read about Robin Hood the robber who used to steal from the rich and give to the poor. But today in this country, we have another type of Robin Hoods, that which steals from the poor to enrich itself. Our Robin Hoods don’t even choose what to steal – they steal anything and everything. These are Robin Hoods who steal from the sick, from those who are ill and need medical treatment. They steal money meant for drugs – life-saving drugs. They don’t care about whether their people live or die. All they care about is the fatness or depth of their pockets. That’s all they are concerned about.

What type of people are these? What type of criminals are these? These are the people going around calling themselves civil or public servants, political leaders! What type of civil or public servants are these? What type of political leaders are these? You can’t be a public servant or political leader without compassion, without kindness towards the people you are supposed to be serving. These don’t serve anyone else other than themselves.

One cannot claim to uphold the sanctity of life if he goes to steal the very limited financial resources given to our sick people by well-wishers from abroad so that minimal healthcare can be provided for all. Stealing money meant for life-saving drugs is tantamount to killing people. One cannot claim to value life if he steals money that was meant for drugs. Life is sacred, a gift from God to be valued from the moment of conception until death. There is need for all of us to reach out, in compassion and solidarity, to all sick citizens of our country.

Stealing money meant for healthcare should rank among the worst crimes a person can commit. Healthcare is really an imitation of Jesus who saw healing the sick as central to his ministry of establishing the Kingdom of God. We may not be able to cure miraculously our sisters and brothers around us but we can share the charity of loving care and tender hands by promoting the justice of good health policies and adequate medicines. We are told in Matthew 14:14: “He Jesus saw a large crowd and he took pity on them and healed their sick.” But our civil or public servants, or political leaders, instead of feeling pity and helping to heal our sick through the provision of good healthcare, are stealing money meant for the provision of minimal healthcare for our people, they are robbing the sick of the drugs donated to them by more humane societies and individuals. Again, we ask: what type of civil or public servants are these; what type of political leaders are these?

Kenneth Kaunda and his comrades, the founders of our Republic, taught us a type of civil or public service and political leadership based on morality, based on love for our fellow citizens. Let us try in a new time and in a new way to restore this concept of civil or public service, of political leadership. Let us teach ourselves and others that public office, whether civil or political, should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape the community.

There has been a lot of goodwill from the international community to help us improve our healthcare. We have been given a lot of money for medicines and infrastructure development. But what have we done? We have stolen and squandered this money that was given for the noblest of causes. Let us not allow the sympathies of the world which we have won so fast to be equally rapidly lost through our dishonesty, corruption, wastefulness and lack of care for the well-being of each other. Let us not allow the desire to serve oneself to bloom and continue to dominate our affairs under the fair mask of the desire to serve the common good. We can’t continue to ignore each other and to care only about ourselves.

We are saying all this because of what has been happening at the Ministry of Health. Today, most of the donors have suspended very valuable aid to this ministry because of corruption. We know that there have been serious problems in the way Swedish aid to our Ministry of Health has been used. Today, this aid is suspended and the director general of SIDA (Swedish International Development Agency) has lost his job as a consequence of corruption in Zambia.

The Global Fund has also suspended disbursements to our Ministry of Health because of strong evidence of continued fraudulent activities and they will not proceed with signing any new grants with our government until they are satisfied that the situation is under control and adequate measures are in place to safeguard their aid.

We also know that there are problems with donor funding in our road sector. Again, donor funding to this sector is frozen because of corruption.
One doesn’t require a microscope to see that there is something wrong in the way public affairs and public resources are being managed. All that one needs to look at is the way civil or public servants live. These are people with relatively low salaries, but look at what they own! They are the owners of the biggest and best farms in the country; they are the owners of mansions and blocks of flats. In a word, they are the most affluent people in the country.

This also applies to some of our political leaders in government and their families and associates. How can one explain how some people have become so rich in less than two years of Rupiah Banda becoming President when before that, they were hosts to bailiffs every week? Here, we are talking about Rupiah and his sons and their associates. Is it not public office that is making them rich, that has taken away their financial problems? It is not the salary of Rupiah that has cleared away their financial problems because the president’s salary in this country is relatively very low. But look at what they have acquired in this short period in relation to Rupiah’s earned income! This is a prima facie case of corruption.

The conviction of all top civil and public servants at the Ministry of Finance under Frederick Chiluba’s regime, including his Minister of Finance, tells a big story of how the resources of our country are being managed.
As for the Ministry of Health, corruption is continuing unabated. This is the ministry the politicians in government use during elections. In 2001, this was the ministry Chiluba used to finance Levy Mwanawasa and his election campaign.

At that time, Kashiwa Bulaya, who is today serving a prison sentence for corruption at Lusaka’s University Teaching Hospital instead of Lusaka Central Prison was the permanent secretary. This is the man who Levy, George Kunda and Director of Public Prosecutions Chalwe Mchenga had corruptly extended a nolle prosequi to.

In the 2008 presidential elections, we carried stories and pictures showing how Ministry of Health resources and automobiles were being used in Rupiah’s campaign. And to this very day, Ministry of Health resources are still being used in parliamentary by-elections by those in government. A thorough investigation will reveal that motor vehicles and fuel from the Ministry of Health found their way to the MMD campaign in Mufumbwe and Milanzi.

These are resources that are supposed to be channelled to our fellow citizens who are sick, who are dying. But instead of trying to save their lives or improve their well-being, resources provided by donors and the Zambian taxpayer are abused in this criminal way. This is the worst form of cruelty and selfishness. And can anyone blame the international community and donors for withholding funding to our government? The answer is a categorical no. Our government does not qualify to handle other people’s money, money from taxpayers of other nations until we put our house in order. It’s immoral to receive money from taxpayers of other countries just for it to come and be stolen by our civil or public servants, our politicians and their associates, the tenderpreneurs.

If we manage to administer donor funding in a more honest, efficient, effective and orderly manner, we will also be able to do the same with the money coming from our own taxpayers. And this will improve the prospects for bettering the lives of our poor people. Let us co-operate with all the donors who have withheld funding to our government and work with them to improve the way we manage the resources made available to our government and our people. Thrift should be the guiding principle in government financial dealings. It should be made clear to all government workers and to all our politicians in government that corruption and waste are very great crimes.

Labels: CORRUPTION, MINISTRY OF HEALTH

posted by MrK @ 12:08 PM