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Senior civil servants must declare assets, says Nkole

Senior civil servants must declare assets, says Nkole
Written by Lambwe Kachali
Saturday, January 31, 2009 11:02:45 AM

TASK Force on Corruption executive chairman Max Nkole yesterday said all senior civil servants must declare their assets and liabilities before holding public offices to prevent them from abusing public resources.

And Patriotic Front (PF) spokesperson Given Lubinda said the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in its current framework cannot execute its work effectively.

Meanwhile, Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) president Reuben Lifuka said the fight against corruption was being approached in an ad hoc way.

Featuring on ‘Let the People Talk’ programme on Radio Phoenix yesterday, Nkole said it was worrying that recent reports had continued to reveal that corruption was more rampant in government institutions.

He said there was urgent need to enact a law to compel all senior civil servants to declare their assets and liabilities before holding public office.

Nkole said this would help investigating wings to establish whether such people stole or plundered public money after their tenure of office.

He, however, wondered what Zambian politicians feared to enact such a law when countries like Nigeria and South Africa, among others, had implemented similar pieces of legislation.

“The recent report by the [acting] director general of the Anti-Corruption Commission alluded to the fact that government institutions are the most corrupt and thatís a big indictment. It also pin points the fact that therefore, there is need for us to check the status of these people before they hold public office. And I think I would advocate for a law to be put in place requiring that all senior government civil servants declare their assets,î he said.

Nkole said there was currently no political will in Zambia as far as the fight against corruption was concerned.

He also challenged parliamentarians to tell the nation how they would help fight corruption in the country.

They have a part to play because they are representing the people and the people they represent are the victims of this corruption,î said Nkole.

And Lubinda said unless more funds were allocated to ACC, it would be difficult for the institution to meet expectations of the Zambians in the fight against corruption.

Last time I checked, they [ACC] only had 11 intelligent officers, and 92 investigative officers for the whole country. How do you expect them to be effective? You cannot expect the ACC to go and investigate all those people building mansions,” he said.

He said last year, parliament approved K32 billion for ACC but only K21 billion was released by government, which he said was not enough for the institution to carry out its work effectively.

Lubinda further said although he, together with other members of parliament, attempted to push for the enactment of a law to compel senior government officials declare their assets and liabilities before holding public office, Cabinet ministers opposed the amendment.

“They actually called me nonsensical; they were saying there was nowhere in any democratic society with such laws. Some ministers said this was draconian and my thinking was wacked. As a result of that, my bill collapsed,” said Lubinda. Now, this to me demonstrates that while some members of parliament are committed to come up with laws to fight corruption, there are some people in government who would fight tooth and nail if those laws are not enacted.”

And Lifuka said despite the efforts and money pumped into the fight against corruption, there was no sufficient progress.

He said it was also important to broaden the fight and not focus on a few individuals.

“The late president [Levy Mwanawasa] came into office with the aspect of zero tolerance to corruption, and we all know, he was a disciplinarian in that regard. He wanted to fight corruption. But, can anyone explain to me why in his tenure, there are number of cases, cases in the Auditor Generalís report have increased; are we pouring resources in the right area? Where are we missing the point,” asked Lifuka. “We need to call for revaluation. What is it that we need to do? Are we providing the right leadership? So the challenge is that we need to have a very clear vision, we need to have very clear strategies, strategies that we know can work.

Meanwhile, ACC community awareness officer Festus Chipungu charged that both politicians and the civil society organisations were not doing their part to help curb the scourge.

Chipungu said the civil society was mostly speaking for themselves and not for the people.

“I want to believe that ACC has done its role. The politicians have their role to play but they have not played very well. Let me go to civil society, because these civil society organisations must be the mouthpiece of the public. But you find that civil society in their fight against corruption is much more speaking for themselves than the public. They are much more speaking for the sake of attacking government instead of helping government to solve the problem and as a result there is antagonism between civil society and government and when there is that antagonism, we are not going to find a common solution,” said Chipungu.

“We expect civil society to be more tactical and engage government at round table discussion, and say where do we go, what do we do to reduce corruption?”

Labels: CIVIL SERVANTS, CORRUPTION, GIVEN LUBINDA, MAX NKOLE, RUEBEN LIFUKA, TIZ

posted by MrK @ 11:02 AM