Maravi

Changing ACC Act will end corruption fight – EK

COMMENT - The ZCTU is completely corrupt.

Changing ACC Act will end corruption fight – EK
By Ernest Chanda
Thu 15 July 2010, 10:20 CAT

ENOCH Kavindele yesterday observed that the government’s intention to remove abuse of office offence from the revised Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) Act signals the end of the fight against corruption.

In an interview, Kavindele - a former Republican vice-president – said political leaders were now panicking because they did not trust some of their decisions. He said there was no need to remove a piece of legislation that had served the country very well for many years.

“In my view, this signals the end of the fight against corruption in Zambia. Abuse of office offence is cardinal in the fight against corruption because it ensures that those in authority should be questioned for their actions. Now if those in authority cannot be questioned for their actions, what example are they giving to those they lead?” Kavindele asked.

On Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) secretary general Roy Mwaba’s support for the removal of the offence from the ACC Act, Kavindele said ZCTU should have been the first to defend the law.

“It does not augur well for the union to support the removal of this law. The normal trend should be that people should be leaving government to go and make money. It should not be a situation where people leave their small tuntemba to go and make money in government; this is wrong. Civil service work is full-time, business also is full-time. And when you are in business, we are not talking about selling tomatoes, but big businesses,” he said.

Kavindele said there was no need for anyone to panic over the law if they were clean. He said the abuse of office offence would always help people live within their means.

“I can see there is panic because most of these people are aware that the decisions they make will follow them. But there is no need to panic, let them just be clean and do the right thing. This law is good for everyone and we should support it. I can see that most of those affected by this law are civil servants. But this is simply because they are the people who sign those documents.

They are the people who form companies and award themselves tenders. A person from Luwingu will not come and sign those documents because he doesn’t know anything. So, let them just be clean on this one and maintain the law,” said Kavindele.

Labels: ACC, CORRUPTION, ENOCH KAVINDELE, ROY MWABA, ZCTU

posted by MrK @ 3:01 PM