The vicious trend to denude the Zambian government of public funds continues unabated like a whirlwind. What makes it hard to fight the scourge is the mere fact that the same people mandated to ensure efficient collection of taxes and its management are neck-deep in the plunder. At worst the plunder is meaningless and has serious and negative implications to the economy and much worse for the poor.
The challenges facing Zambia are astronomical. What makes it obnoxious is the sheer knowledge that the civil servants, taxmen, some men of law, the police and some in the political leadership are caught up in the vice. Having said that, the question that comes to mind is "Just who can be trusted to fight the fight against corruption and plunder of public funds without getting their fingers soiled? Are there any trustworthy civil servants (or call them corrupt sevants) left in Zambia?
We have stated before that the Task Force against corruption and plunder must be given more sharpened teeth through the enactment of tough laws and enhance its capacity to extend and take the fight to all the minitries, the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA), Zambia Passports and Citizenship Department, Bank of Zambia, etc. We believe that the worst of the financial scandals concerning misappropriation and embezzlement of funds are yet to be uncovered.
The penalties intended to fight corruption must not be mere slap-on-wrist but tough enough to deter any one bent on corruption. It is important that the fight against corruption be fought relentlessly with "iron" laws and instruments. In addition, government must adopt zero-tolerance against corruption and be applicable equally across the whole spectrum of the Zambian fabric. Maybe Zambia will do well to relook at corruption and prescribe sharia law against corrupt Zambians regardless of their societal standing.
LG,
ReplyDeleteYou have raised an important, interesting, and above all complex issue within democratic theory in general as well as the Zambian context in particular. I find the subject continually thought provoking, and difficult to opine definitively about, however there are some aspects of the continuing struggle between unitary and adversarial democratic means and ends that are consistently evident. I usually tend to come down on the side of more unitary systems (which assume common goals), however there are some cases where adversarial systems outperform.
Among these is the aspect of majority electoral dominance which precludes the possibility of external oversight with equal mandate. Usually this is addressed through judicial independence measures, however the historically most effective of those rely on consistently divided or punctuated party rule (e.g. US citizens tend to vote for one party as the executive and the other for legislative power in part due to the agreement required between them for judicial nominations, though a persistent but not crippling shortage of approved judges does result).
Punctuated rule by two or more parties has an "intended" consequence on high-level corruption. Why this would be the case is rather common sense: You just took over an operation from your bitterest rival, and if they are an opponent worth the name then they have left a few unpleasant "welcoming gifts" behind, which will bedevil the first few days at least of your administration and prevent a smooth transition. This is the downside (and typical zero-sum politics, where both sides lose, but you lose more, so your opponent is okay with it). The upside is that anything they were doing that they were unable to clean up or hide before you arrived, you can blame on them. Likewise anything going on at lower levels while they were supposedly in charge, you can blame on them. Anything you manage to fix well enough to talk about in the press, you can claim and blame on your predecessor at the same time. These are productive incentives for public officials, as opposed to "not making waves", working your way up through the single party hierarchy, "it's who you know--not what you know", etc.
Corruption becomes much more difficult when one has to account for a future administration with access to all the records that has more to gain by busting you than by being bribed.