Zamtel deal
Zamtel dealBy The Post
Mon 23 Jan. 2012, 12:00 CAT
IT is said that "what you get by dishonesty, you may enjoy like the finest food, but sooner or later, it will be like a mouthful of sand" (Proverbs 20:17). It is also said that "the more easily you get your wealth, the less good it will do you" (Proverbs 20:21) and that "the riches you get by dishonesty soon disappear, but not before they lead you into the jaws of death" (Proverbs 21:6).
This is the case those who corruptly sold and bought Zamtel are today finding themselves in.
The writing was on the wall for all to see that there was something wrong with this transaction which no decent regime would accept. But neither Rupiah Banda nor his friends in LAP GreenN were ready or willing to listen.
They thought they were the alpha and the omega - everything was dependent on them. And they didn't think that they were going to leave power so soon, so early; they didn't believe that with all their corruptly acquired money, penniless people would defeat them in the September 20, 2011 elections. They thought they had it all wrapped up and that after another five years in power, nobody would ever talk about their corrupt sale of Zamtel.
It is said that "a warning given by an experienced person to someone willing to listen is more valuable than gold rings or jewelry made of the finest gold" (Proverbs 25:12). Rupiah and his LAP GreenN friends cannot say they were not warned or that they were not advised by fellow Zambians, including ourselves, to stop their evil and corrupt schemes in Zamtel. But they were not ready to listen to anyone. The money was too big to forego; the stakes were too high to lose.
They were ready to defend a clearly corrupt transaction against all political, moral and legal wisdom that they were given. Whoever tried to stop them was an enemy. They even got rid of an extremely honest Attorney General, Mumba Malila, whose only crime was to try and advise them against this clearly evil transaction. Today, they will have to face Malila - he is back as Attorney General. And they are out there appearing before our law enforcement officers as criminal suspects over the same things they were advised against.
This is what greed does to people; "bloodthirsty people hate anyone who is honest, but righteous people will protect the life of such a person" (Proverbs 29:10); "the righteous hate the wicked, and the wicked hate the righteous" (Proverbs 29: 27).
There is nothing wrong Michael Sata and his government have done in trying to straighten a transaction that was born twisted. What can anyone truthfully expect Michael to do? Watch them enjoy the fruits of banditry, plunder, corruption without doing anything? They have stolen from the people.
Zamtel was 100 per cent owned by the Zambian people and it has been corruptly taken away from them.
What can anyone truthfully expect a president who represents the people to do? A government which bases all its actions on the highest interest of the broad masses of the Zambian people and which is fully convinced of the justice of its calls, can never do anything other than what Michael is trying to do - get what has been stolen from the people and give it back to them. A people's government, a people's president, protects the people. And only when the people have such a government, such a president can they rid themselves of corruption and all its consequences.
To see someone stealing from the people, harming the interests of the masses and yet not feel indignant about it is something that only corrupt elements of the Rupiah type can tolerate. One has to be corrupt to defend what has happened to Zamtel, to defend Rupiah's Zamtel-LAP GreenN deal. In fact, if one wants to see where one belongs on the corruption indices, one should simply look at where one stands on this issue, on the sale of Zamtel to LAP GreenN by Rupiah and his friends.
Only a corrupt element can either suggest that repossessing what has been stolen from the people will scare away investors. What type of investors can be scared away by the acts of a government that doesn't tolerate dishonesty, thieving or corruption? Only corrupt investors want to deal with a corrupt regime.
And truly, there is no shortage of such investors in the world. There are many. But the question is: of what value are they to a country and its development?
We all know that the Gaddafi regime was not only tyrannical but it was also corrupt in its dealings with weak African leaders and their regimes. We all know that Gaddafi used to give some weak African presidents money to induce them or bribe them to take positions that were favourable to him on various, including business deals in their own countries. And Rupiah knows this very well. We will not ask him the embarrassing question: what did Gaddafi do for you? Or how much did Gaddafi pay you?
There is a new regime in Libya which we hope will be different from that of Gaddafi and treat other Africans with respect and with a spirit of solidarity. And we expect them to demonstrate this by giving back to sister nations that which was taken away from them through the corruption of their own leaders and Gaddafi.
We believe it will be much easier for the new Libyan leaders to deal with honest African leaders than crooked elements that Gaddafi had corrupted with money, with bribes.
[Don't hold your breath. The new Libyan government in infinitely more corrupt than the government of mr. Ghadaffi ever could have been. They came to power through NATO destruction of their country, and many of them are racist and insane. Then, many of them are Islamist fanatics who fought the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). And now they are getting NATO air support. Gee, I wonder if they could have been working for parts (Rockefeller) of the US government all along, to provide cover for foreign invasion and a continued stay in Iraq. After all, they were created by the US's Porter Goss and Zbigniev Brzezinski in the 1980s to begin with, to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. In true Pentagon supporting tradition, Hollywood even made a movie glorifying them - Rambo III, filmed entirely in Israel, with Israeli actors. Recently, Hollywood made a movie vilifying President Mugabe, called The Interpreter, with Nicole Kidman, and a movie supporting the diamond monopolist Anglo-American De Beers driven Kimberly Process diamond certification, called Blood Diamond, with Leo DiCaprio, a process aimed mainly at keeping Zimbabwe from selling it's diamonds and maintaining the economic blockade of the country. And I'm not impugning the actors' integrity at all, just their political and economic insight, which I am sure is based on mainstream media reporting. - MrK]
It won't do to let LAP GreenN keep Zamtel, a company they had corruptly acquired, for the sake of just being seen to respect the property rights of foreign investors. There is no need for Michael and his government to refrain from taking a principled position simply because doing so will make them look bad in the eyes of investors, or rather corrupt investors.
Of course, we shouldn't forget that there are people in this world who take cruel advantage of the poor and needy and their governments or representatives; that is the way they make their living. But whereas there are people whose job, whose way of earning a living is to collude with corrupt elements and defend them and their deeds, there are also people who see it as their life's mission to defend the people and that which is just against those who try to steal the people's honour.
And right now, Michael is doing just that - defending the people's interests and their honour.
A man who colludes with corrupt investors to steal from his people is not an honourable man. There must be a certain amount of honour in a country for it to prosper. When there are many men and women without honour, there are always others who bear in themselves the honour of many men and women.
posted by MrK @ 10:09 AM
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