Africa-Press – Zambia. We have found something to praise and support about Hakainde Hichilema’s administration: the will to fight corruption and to restore the rule of law. While we may not agree on everything with the UPND administration, we fully support them in their desire to make past and present leaders accountable, and to fight corruption as well as other financial crimes committed by PF members and their associates. We wish to praise Hakainde particularly for restoring a sense of responsibility in our society.
Crooks, thieves of all sorts are today thinking twice before engaging in crimes. Those who are still plundering tax payers money in government institutions are doing so in secrecy knowing too well that there is a President who does not tolerate that nonsense. Corruption – not until Hakainde was pronounced a winner in the August elections – had become a normal undertaking where senior government officials in collaboration with party thieves were blatantly engaging in corrupt activities. Once again, Zambians can feel that corruption is a crime all because the President has spoken strongly against it on so many instances than not.
But as we praise and support Hakainde on this score, we are concerned with the slow pace at which things are happening. We are not rushing things, we are not impatient. We – just like many Zambians – want to see thieves jailed for plundering tax payers monies and bankrupting Zambian coffers.
It is not a secret that the past seven years there about has been a stealing spree in this country. Zambia was turned into a safe zone for all sorts of crooks, criminals. The thugery that characterized this country was embedded in the so-called infrastructure development agenda of the PF. Prices of goods and services where inflated 100 times beyond the market value , whereas, the markup ended up in the pockets of PF aligned tenderprenuers and all sorts of crooks. Look at the immorality in the procurement of 42 fire trucks and the inflating of figures therein! What justification is there, for government to spend $1 million dollars on a single truck of that nature? What is so special about those wheelbarrows for us to spend such a huge amount? Does the investigative wings need so much information to tell that, regardless that procurement procedures may have been followed, it is criminal and immoral for government officials to buy such things at that cost? Yes, the supplier met the requirements set out but, there is a very high possibility of corruption there.
We know of how government was paying for contracts of supply of goods and services to companies despite those companies not delivering anything. We know of how criminals who were working at State House were forcing Permanent Secretaries to authorize payments of huge monies to crooks of all sorts, on contracts that were not fulfilled. We know of how crooks were importing vehicles in the country without paying duty for them. We know of how ZRA was turned into a facility of criminals of all sorts. We know of the theft that was happening at Food Reserve Agency where PF thieves were getting maize from there and selling to Congo. Look at the criminality that surrounds the Government Higer Bus empowerment scheme, where much known criminals who are at party structures of the PF turned the buses into their personal cash cows!
There are people who were employed by the Local Government Service Commission as workers of Lusaka City Council (LCC) yet, the same elements where active members of the PF on structures in Lusaka Province and on the District.
We believe there is no much to investigate about some of the crookedness that took place in the PF administration, to an extent that it must not take forever for the investigative wings to deal with such.
In the beginning, we doubted the intention by Hakainde to move the investigative wings to State House but at the moment we support this move. We believe it is a move that is noble and is meant to ensure that these faulty investigative wings work to meet the satisfaction of the people. We support this and hope that it will not be abused by Hakainde.
As we support these efforts by the Hakainde led- administration, we wish to state that the UPND must always remember that they are in power on account of trust of the people. Hakainde is only in State House on condition that he pleases the people of Zambia. The people want to see arrests and convictions in haste. The slow pace at which he is doing things, is worrying.
