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(STICKY) Magande urges Zambians to demand accountability from government

Magande urges Zambians to demand accountability from government
By Patson Chilemba
Mon 23 May 2011, 04:01 CAT

ZAMBIANS should demand accountability from Rupiah Banda and his government, says Ng'andu Magande.

Commenting on President Banda's admission that the K1 trillion road projects which he recently launched in Kitwe were not catered for in the 2010 national budget, Magande, who is former finance minister, said the operations of the government must be from the national budget. He said the budget must indicate the sources of revenue and the utilisation.

Magande said the public who were supposed to be the beneficiaries should therefore know where the money for the road projects came from.

“That is why when the public complained about paying high taxes such as Value Added Tax (VAT) or Pay As You Earn (PAYE), the government can explain where the money has been utilized. Now if the government is implementing public projects like roads and the money is not in the budget, that is not transparency and that will not show accountability because the private people, whether employees or whether companies should only relate with government in terms of their help to government by paying taxes,” Magande said.

“If they don't then it means they have other ways of negotiating with government on how to give the government money outside the budget system, which therefore causes difficulties for the Ministry of Finance to trace what is happening in the economy.”

Magande said he was very surprised when he heard President Banda say that a big road project worth trillions of Kwacha was being done outside the national budget.

“It should not happen because who negotiates with these private people in government and how much money is he getting out of those people? It doesn't show transparency at all. And if you don't have transparency that is how issues of corruption comes in,” Magande said.

“Because if the private company is negotiating with a government officer outside the budget to say 'give us K200 million', how do we know that that company and the civil servant will not exchange another K20 million? So this is not acceptable as a way of running a transparent and accountable government.”

Magande said President Banda should disclose the source of the K1 trillion to be used on roads because he was accountable to the Zambian people.

“How is he collecting this money on our behalf, and who are these people who are giving him money? If it is the mines, why don't they just pay taxes and that is the end of the story?” he said.

Magande said that was why some Chinese employers were recently quoted telling their workers to get money from government because they paid their money to government officials.

He wondered how much money those in government were getting from some private organizations without the people's knowledge.

“You Zambians must still seek accountability. You voted for these people in power,” said Magande.

Speaking to journalists at Lusaka International Airport shortly before departure for an extraordinary SADC Summit in Namibia, President Banda said his government was creative and did not need the budget to carry out all the projects.

President Banda admitted that the K1 trillion that would be used on road projects on the Copperbelt was not budgeted for in this year's budget, although he failed to disclose the source of the huge amount of money.

Labels: 2010 BUDGET, INFRASTRUCTURE, NG'ANDU MAGANDE, PAYE, ROADS, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 7:36 PM