Maravi

Abuse of funds at our foreign missions

Abuse of funds at our foreign missions
By The Post
Wed 13 Apr. 2011, 04:00 CAT

It is good that Kabinga Pande is concerned about the continued abuse of public funds in Zambia’s foreign missions. The efforts Kabinga is making to try and stop the abuse of public funds at our missions abroad are highly welcome but will not yield much positive results.

We say this because for us to see improvement in the use of public funds at our missions abroad, there will be need to change the personnel that we have in these missions.

Kabinga knows who is abusing funds at our missions but doesn’t seem to be capable of doing anything about it, of disciplining the people involved.

This is so because the people who go to our foreign missions are generally not ordinary civil servants.

They are people well-connected to the President and his associates. They are their relatives, friends or children of friends and other associates.

The recruitment to the foreign service is not done on a professional basis; there is a lot of nepotism involved in it.

Sometimes they are outright cadres of the ruling party who are being rewarded for the services they rendered to the party.

Most of these people don’t have what it takes to work in our foreign missions and indeed in the civil service.

Most of them are people who had no employment in Zambia and were taken abroad as a way of giving them something to do.

Very little attention was paid to their suitability to be in the foreign service.

As long as our foreign missions continue to be dominated by relatives, friends, associates of those in power and cadres of the ruling party abuse of public funds will be difficult to stop.

And general discipline in our foreign missions will be difficult to maintain because these are people who are well-connected.

And with such people, there is very little Kabinga or the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can do to discipline them.

Even normal re-callings of staff at our missions are difficult to effect because the powers that be will simply intervene and stop the process.

As the result, we have people who have been in foreign missions for a very long time doing nothing but getting a salary.

There is need to develop a professional career diplomatic service.

In fact, we have many well-trained Zambians in this field who are not being posted to foreign missions because they don’t have the right connections with the people in control of the government.

As a result, the country is not benefiting from the funds it’s spending in running these missions.

With incompetent, inefficient and ineffective people running our missions, foreign travel costs will continue to rise because for every little thing to be done someone has to travel from Lusaka.

This is what happens when national interests are subordinated to personal interests.

This is what happens in a nation when power is seen as something personal; something to be enjoyed and not as a legitimate tool for the cause of the people.

This is surely not serving the people but serving oneself.

We say this because to serve the people wholeheartedly, one should always proceed in all cases from the interests of the people and not from one’s self interests or from the interest of a small group.

One should hold oneself responsible to the people.

If Rupiah Banda was asked today to justify the appointments he has made to the foreign service, he would have serious difficulties explaining why he had appointed his relatives, friends or children of his friends, cadres of his party to such important and difficult tasks that are beyond their capacity.

Anyway, Rupiah doesn’t think he is answerable or accountable to anyone for these appointments.

It is his prerogative and end of story.

He doesn’t know that his duty is to hold himself responsible to the people and that every appointment of his must conform to the people’s interests.

He has no interest of the people and the sufferings of the great majority at heart.

For Rupiah, it is time for him, his relatives and friends to enjoy.

And it doesn’t matter to Rupiah what his appointees do for the nation.

What matters to him is what they get out of their appointments.

He didn’t appoint them on merit. He didn’t appoint them because they were the most competent.

They were sent to these foreign missions simply because of their connections or closeness to him.

A leader who cares about his country can never do such a thing, can never run his country on such naked nepotism.

This is what happens to a country when values are lost; when principles are lost and when greed, vanity and corruption are the order of the day.

This is abuse of office by Rupiah.

This is corruption on Rupiah’s part. We say corruption because abuse of office is corruption.

It is corruption for one to appoint his relatives or friends to public jobs they are not qualified to perform but they are being paid taxpayers’ money for doing nothing of value to the taxpayer.

Our country is poor and cannot afford to waste money in this way. Only those who are qualified to be in foreign service should be deployed there.

Foreign service jobs are not a means for getting relatives and friends who have no jobs into jobs; foreign service jobs should never be used as a reward for the campaign services rendered to the President by cadres of all sorts.

Foreign service jobs are very important to the nation in today’s highly globalised and politically troubled world.

The country has to benefit something from every job created in the foreign service. Only those with something to offer should be given these jobs on merit.

Those who pay taxes are not doing so for the enjoyment of Rupiah, his relatives and friends.

They are doing so in the hope that their government will use that money to provide the necessary services that are required by the people.

As long as nepotism dominates our foreign service appointments, accountability and financial discipline will not be realised.

To bring accountability, efficiency, effectiveness and orderliness in the operations of our foreign missions, merit has to be introduced in the appointments and nepotism has to be done away with.

Labels: EMBASSIES, KABINGA PANDE, NEPOTISM

posted by MrK @ 5:00 AM