Maravi

TIZ notes slowness in probing plunder

TIZ notes slowness in probing plunder
By Allan Mulenga
Thu 05 Apr. 2012, 13:53 CAT

TIZ has urged law enforcement agencies to speed up investigations on plunder cases and bring them to the courts of law. In an interview, Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) executive director Goodwell Lungu observed that there were a number of high-profile cases that had been cited, but had not yet been concluded.

"We implore the law enforcement agencies to ensure that they speedily investigate these cases and bring them to the courts of law because the expectation of the public is that there are quite a number of cases that have been cited that involve billions of kwacha, but those have not been concluded.

We don't want to see a situation like what happened under late president Levy Mwanawasa era, where there were a number of cases that were cited but most of them were not thoroughly investigated and even presented before the courts of law. Our expectations are high, but we feel that time is running out," Lungu said.

Asked on the latest baseline study where it was revealed that certain government institutions were hesitant to give out information on corruption to the public, Lungu described the conduct of some government departments as embarrassing.

"We believe that as we are moving into an era of putting information in the public domain, it will work to the advantage of all government institutions. Even those that are resistant to ensure that they disclose that information to both the Anti Corruption Commission as well as to members of the public so that they can track progress on how they are fairing on issues of transparency and accountability," he said.

Lungu urged government institutions to develop indicators on how best they could fight corruption within their departments.

"We would like to encourage those institutions to ensure that they start factoring the fight against corruption within their rank and file. Also to ensure that they start developing indicators on how best they are going to fight corruption within their particular organisations," said Lungu.

Labels: GOODWELL LUNGU, TIZ

posted by MrK @ 3:29 PM