Effects of corruption more severe on poor citizens - Munkombwe

Effects of corruption more severe on poor citizens - Munkombwe
By Edwin Mbulo in Livingstone
Sun 22 Aug. 2010, 04:00 CAT

SOUTHERN Province minister Daniel Munkombwe has said the effects of corruption are more severe on the poor citizens who cannot afford alternative public services.

And National Council for Construction (NCC) standards officer Saili Kancheya observed that Transparency International’s 2008 Bribe Payer’s Index (BPI) ranks construction as the sector mostly likely to bribe officials and contribute financially to politicians and political parties to achieve undue influence over policies, laws and regulations.

During a consultative workshop on Construction Sector Transparency (CoST) initiative organized by NCC at Livingstone Lodge on Thursday, Munkombwe, who was represented by Livingstone District commissioner Francis Chika, said the government had the resolve and commitment to fight corruption in the country.

“The effects of corruption are more severe on our poor who cannot afford alternative public services other than those provided by government. Nor can they afford to pay extra costs associated with bribery, fraud and extortion and other corrupt vices,” Munkombwe said.

He said corruption ends up with unnecessary, unsuitable, defective, white elephants and sometimes dangerous construction projects.

“You have all heard of the increasing number of stories on allegations and sometimes convictions over corruption charges in the local construction industry. This has created a lot of concern, thus the urgency to act on the part of government by enlisting to be among the pioneers of CoST,” he said.

Munkombwe said the government was indebted to the British government through the Department for International Development (DFID) for supporting Zambia in the fight against corruption and its associated vices in the construction industry.

“The global Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) project aims at enhancing the transparency and accountability of publicly financed construction projects. The core concept of CoST is ‘get what you pay for’ through the enhancement of accountability in the procurement process in public sector construction works to a broad range of stakeholders. CoST, therefore, focuses on allowing more questions to be raised about the outcomes and how the overall procurement process is being managed from the time of contract award right up to the final handover of the project to the client,” Munkombwe said.
And Kancheya said the global construction amounts to US $2.3 trillion a year while estimated losses due to corruption, direct and indirect, amounts to an estimated 30 per cent of the figure per annum.

He said the public sector infrastructure projects made major contributions to the economic growth and poverty reduction.

“Mismanagement and corruption can undermine economic and social benefits. Corruption in the construction sector is the major obstacle to doing business,” he said.

Kancheya said the construction sector’s contracts were prone to corruption because of their size, technical complexity, extensive approval process and easy concealment of sub-standard quality.

NCC public relations officer Wendy Mukape, who is also the CoST project officer, said CoST was an international multi-stakeholder programme designed to increase transparency and accountability in public financed projects in the construction sector.

“CoST aims to ensure governments and people get value for money in public construction through disclosure to the public of specified material project information throughout the specified project cycle,” said Mukape.