Maravi

TIZ demands transparency in all public appointments

TIZ demands transparency in all public appointments
By Bright Mukwasa
Sun 22 Jan. 2012, 13:30 CAT

TIZ says the vacuum created by the dissolved parastatal boards attracts political patronage and presents real opportunities for corruption, plunder of resources and abuse of office.

And Transparency International Zambia chapter president Reuben Lifuka has advised the government not to subscribe to the notion that boards of parastatals should be composed of people whose only qualification is being good and loyal political cadres.

In an interview, Lifuka demanded transparency and accountability in all public appointments, saying it would not do for ministers to handpick people for positions in parastatals based on unknown criteria.

He said TIZ noted with concern that it was over three months now since a number of boards of directors for parastatal bodies were dissolved by President Michael Sata and for some institutions like ZNBC, the tenure of the board expired a long time ago.

"This vacuum attracts political patronage as exhibited by the appointment of an acting postmaster general by the Minister of Transport, Works, Supply and Communication Yamfwa Mukanga. Clearly, if the Board was in place, it should have been given this mandate to advertise, recruit and appoint a replacement for the post-master general. We have seen similar appointments to positions of authority made by ministers usurping the powers of boards of directors," Lifuka said.

"The same message goes to other Cabinet ministers who have the responsibility of putting in place boards of directors; this omission cannot go on for much longer and they need to cure this by taking action at the earliest opportunity. Such vacuums in leadership and management oversight, present real opportunities for corruption, plunder of resources and abuse of office."

He urged that the old system employed by the previous regime where ministers filled boards of directors with incapable friends, colleagues and cadres should stop forthwith.

Lifuka said one of the reasons a number of parastatals were limping was that they had ‘very poor quality' board members, most of whom hardly had knowledge and skills to serve in that capacity.

"We insist that the PF government will be doing Zambians a great injustice if it adopts the same bad traits of the past which were anchored on political appeasement and patronage. One of the causes of corruption in the past was the abuse of discretionary power and some of the decisions we have witnessed in the last few months demonstrates a great need to curb any tendencies towards excesses in the discharge of public functions," he said.

Lifuka said in the case of ZAMPOST, the solution to the problems did not lie in political appointments such as the one made by Mukanga, but rather in developing and implementing a comprehensive strategy of turning around the operations of the postal services entity which was faced with numerous challenges.

"It is important that Cabinet ministers move from being mere status quo managers to transformative leaders who will bring about sustainable changes in their ministries," he said.

Lifuka told President Sata and his government that the honeymoon was over and it was time to move away from expending energies and resources on non-issues and start dealing with the root causes of the several challenges that the country was facing.

Labels: PARASTATALS, REUBEN LIFUKA, TIZ, TRANSPARANCY

posted by MrK @ 1:37 PM