Law enforcement bodies frustrating corruption fight'

Law enforcement bodies frustrating corruption fight'
By Roy Habaalu
Tue 05 June 2012, 13:24 CAT

LAW enforcement agencies are frustrating the government's fight against corruption, says Transparency International Zambia.

TIZ executive director Goodwell Lungu said President Michael Sata's resolve to fight corruption was not being translated into tangible action by law enforcement officers and government ministries.

He said there was a gap between the President's political will to fight corruption and law enforcement agencies.

"... the President complained about the slow pace of these institutions and President Sata is not the first one to complain of the slow pace. Even (late Levy) Mwanawasa complained that these law enforcement agencies were not responding positively and rapidly to the given political will. There are certain cases that are just abandoned mid-way. At the beginning when PF came into power there was excitement created, people were being summoned left, right and centre to answer to certain charges, but those issues have sort of been abandoned. There is quietness on those issues and that's the trend," Lungu said.

"As TIZ (we are saying) that if we continue like that the indication might show that we are not making significant improvements in the fight against corruption."

Lungu said law enforcement agencies should be extremely proactive in following up corruption uncovered through the Auditor General's reports.

"So our worry at the moment is that even the civil service has not been put in top gear to respond 100 per cent to the provided political will and the danger in which the PF lies in is that they have not marshalled support in terms of practicality on the ground, on how they will be able to put in place pragmatic, tangible measures to move this fight against corruption forward. A number of government agencies its business as usual, the same areas where people complained of corrupt practices there has been no changes," he said.

Lungu said the President Sata needed to come up with a tangible action plan that would translate his political will into action.

He said under Frederick Chiluba's administration, Zambia on average was losing K275 billion annually and the figure rose to K625 billion under Mwanawasa despite the political will he provided.

"We saw that the public service, even ministers and permanent secretaries in particular, did not respond positively to that fight, so the PF has to rapidly assess how they are faring so far and permanent secretaries in particular should take it upon themselves to develop at least institutional actions on how they are going to institutionalise the fight against corruption. If they don't do that, the President's talk and political will might be rendered irrelevant if it's not put into practice at ground level," he said.