Africa-Press – Zambia. In this case, I can say that God used Mhende to frustrate what is clearly an evil scheme and to remove any lingering doubt that it is President Hichilema and Jack Mwiimbu who are behind the ongoing attempts to destroy our democracy by stealing the country’s main opposition party.
●Politicians come and go. The civil service remains. A professional civil servant – be they a police officer, a soldier, an intelligence officer, a teacher, a health worker, a lawyer, an engineer, an accountant, or any other public servant, all of whom are essential – has ethics. Please stick to these ethics.
●I appeal to the remaining civil servants to refuse to obey illegal instructions, to keep the records for the future. Let time. Things change! Tick. Tick. Tick..
●I now understand why President Hichilema refuses to live in State House. This may be because it is easier to cut deals with private interest groups outside State House and the prying eyes and ears of principled civil servants. All this indicates that we now have dealers in government.
As I show how in the article, Hichilema’s administration is responsible for the current wangles in the PF. This is the issue at hand. Hichilema knows this. You and I must hold him to account for lying that his administration has no business in choosing who runs the main opposition party. I have provided evidence to the contrary in the article. It is unethical for a president to be telling lies.
He knows how his administration hounded out the Registrar of Societies Thandiwe Mhende to formalise Miles Sampa’s illegal convention and enable the changes they have made to the PF’s leadership.
I was an opponent of the PF’s undemocratic actions when it was in power and a regular critic of then President Lungu. But one does not have to support the PF to see that the absence of a viable opposition party will be a terrible development for Zambia’s multiparty democracy.
Over the last decade, the country has evolved into a two-party system. Out of the 156 parliamentary seats directly elected under first-past-the-post, the UPND and PF share 142. If one of these parties disappears or if Hichilema succeeds in his efforts to obliterate the PF, Zambia will effectively be a one-party state.
I do not know and have neither met nor had any form of contact with the ousted Registrar of Societies, but I celebrate Thandiwe Phiri Mhende without qualification and consider her a brave and principled heroine of Zambia who has paid the price for refusing to participate in the diabolical grand scheme of President Hichilema and Mwiimbu to kill our democracy and create a de facto one-party state.
Between the country and those who want to destroy the country, she chose the country. Between doing what is right and perpetuating wrongs at the behest of those in positions of State power, she chose doing what is right. Between upholding the laws of the country including the Societies Act, which establishes her office, and vandalising them as done by the President, the Minister of Home Affairs, and the Speaker of the National Assembly, she chose to uphold the laws of the country.
Between following the dictates of her conscience and following the orders of politicians, she chose to follow the dictates of her conscience. Between being a professional civil servant and destroying her professional career by following illegal instructions from crooked politicians who say one thing in public and do another in private, she chose to remain a professional civil servant. These look like easy decisions. They are not.
If placed in Mhende’s position, many people would have easily succumbed to the likely intimidation, threats, bribery, and even the weight of loneliness that must have come her way. Many people would have thought about the welfare of their children, their family, their professional advancement or promotion, their private gain and yielded to placing these considerations ahead of the national interest. I can only imagine the enormous pressure that Mhende must have been subjected to by President Hichilema and Mwiimbu to fall into line. In the end, this ordinary civil servant, this ordinary woman, this ordinary citizen, withstood all these temptations and decided to respect her sacred oath of office.
It is not that she did not know the consequences of doing the right thing when the policy of the government is lawlessness. She very well knew but she seems to have decided that ‘If I must lose my job, let it be for doing the right thing’. This spirit, this indomitable will, this bravery, this loyalty to principle, this preparedness by an ordinary civil servant to stand up against those determined to subvert Zambia’s institutions of governance, deserves celebration.
I invite all Zambians of goodwill including the women’s movement led by the NGOCC to join me in hoisting Mhende as a heroine of Zambia, a stickler of the law, and a defender of our democracy. Whatever happens next, Mhende will be absolved by history.
She has demonstrated that there are Zambians who know what is right, who understand the laws of the country, and are prepared to uphold, defend, and protect wider public interest, even at the risk of their careers. When historians will write the history of this moment in the evolution of Zambia’s nationhood and democracy, they will forever recognise her name as among those who refused to betray public trust and stood on the right side.
The course of a nation can be altered, for good or bad, by the actions of an individual. Individuals serve as the catalysts of positive change. Even in Biblical times, God never used groups to effect positive change; He worked with individuals such as Moses. In this case, I can say that God used Mhende to frustrate what is clearly an evil scheme and to remove any lingering doubt that it is President Hichilema and Jack Mwiimbu who are behind the ongoing attempts to destroy our democracy by stealing the country’s main opposition party.
I can only appeal to the rest of the civil service to choose principle over expediency, to emulate Mhende’s heroic example of choosing the country over politicians, even at the risk of their career. I know that Mhende is not alone. I know that there are many hardworking and professional civil servants who are unhappy with the many wrong things that those in power today are doing, just like there were many such outstanding citizens of our country under Lungu.
There are many civil servants in Zambia today who are doing their best for the country under very frustrating circumstances; professionals who are daily refusing to bend the law to benefit the politician’s interest or the interests of their associates.
As one who shares citizenship with these countrywomen and men, I thank them most sincerely for their dedication, duty, and honour. But I also know that there are many civil servants who presently don’t know which side to fall on, whether to give in to the selfish machinations of some of the politicians in power, or to hold on firmly to their professional ethics. To these Zambians, I have one message: please do not give up; please choose the right side. The country needs you.
I know that the pressure from politicians on civil servants to do the wrong thing is not just happening in the political arena. It is everywhere – in mining, energy, parliament, the police, agriculture (fertiliser, farming inputs), health, tourism, commerce, in short, in all ministries where civil servants have been silenced by the thieving politicians and their associates.
To these civil servants, I say, it is time to choose. Are you going to participate in defending and protecting Zambia by remaining unwavering to professional integrity and your oath of office or in selling it out?
I encourage the rest of the civil service to stand up and be counted, to refuse to continue being complicit in the ongoing vandalisation of our democracy and auctioning of our natural wealth to private businesses and foreign commercial interests, and to choose right over wrong, the law over lawlessness, principle over bribery, public interest over private gain, the public over the politician.
Politicians come and go. The civil service remains. A professional civil servant – be they a police officer, a soldier, an intelligence officer, a teacher, a health worker, a lawyer, an engineer, an accountant, or any other public servant, all of whom are essential – has ethics. Please stick to these ethics.
Thanks to the experience of Mhende, I now understand why President Hichilema has consistently undermined and demonstrated extreme contempt for the civil service.
I now understand why President Hichilema has created a government outside government – led by the Tony Blair and the Brenthurst foundations and their local affiliates – to supervise ministers and govern the Government of Zambia.
It is because civil servants are sticking to their professional ethics in defence of public interest and inadvertently frustrating his administration’s deal-making schemes. I now understand why President Hichilema refuses to live in State House. This may be because it is easier to cut deals with private interest groups outside State House and the prying eyes and ears of principled civil servants. All this indicates that we now have dealers in government.
In fact, on several occasions, President Hichilema has repeatedly expressed frustration with the bureaucracy of civil service. But this is simply an indirect acknowledgement of his failure to get away with many wrong things using unwritten instructions.
It is a show of how civil servants may be refusing to sacrifice their integrity, resisting the bending of their professional ethics, and opposing the violation of the law to accommodate his political and probably private interests.
What is wrong with following laid down procedures and issuing instructions in the written form if they are lawful? Why would any transparent leader be afraid to leave a formal record of their instructions if those instructions are lawful?
The President has also repeatedly said he does not want mining to be done in the courts. This is yet another example that indicates his appetite for making deals away from the due process. What he and Mwimbu were trying to do with Mhende was to cut a political deal that circumvents Zambia’s laws and all ethical norms. I appeal to the remaining civil servants to refuse to obey illegal instructions, to keep the records for the future. Let time. Things change! Tick. Tick. Tick…
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