By Daily Revelation Reporter
It is tantamount to corruption for President Hakainde Hichilema to fail to declare his list of assets and liabilities with the Chief Justice, says Economic Front (EF) leader Wynter Kabimba.
Calling in to Daily Revelation, Kabimba said under the ministerial code of conduct act, every member of parliament, which he said included the President, is obliged to file every year with the Chief Justice the list of their assets and liabilities and that the document should be a public document, once it is filed and therefore every citizen has a right to access that information for them to know how poor or how rich their leaders are every year.
He said failure to file that was a breach of the act for which a member of parliament could lose their seat.
“We have a situation now where the public have been calling upon the President to file his assets and liabilities with the Chief Justice in accordance with that law. And the President has simply ignored those demands from the public. Meaning that the President is actually in breach of that piece of legislation and this is against him having taken the oath of office that he will respect and uphold the constitution of this land,” Kabimba said. “Now, respecting and upholding the constitution includes respecting the subsidiary pieces of legislation which derive their power from the constitution.”
Kabimba said since President Hichilema was talking about transparency, he wondered how else the members of the public will know his wealth status at the beginning of his term as compared to how that will be at the end of five years, if he fails to file the list of assets and liabilities now.
“Now, corruption is not only about getting a direct bribe from somebody, or some gratification. Corruption can also involve circumventing the laws of the land by using your position not to respect the provisions of the law. And the loud silence from the President against the demands by the public for him to comply with the provisions of that law could actually be said to be corruption in itself,” Kabimba said. “It is tantamount to corruption because he is refusing to be transparent. He is refusing to give information to the Zambian people which would allow the Zambian people at the end of this year to determine whether or not a man like that has abused his office. Whether or not a man in that position has acquired assets that are beyond his emoluments.”
But put to him that the President can argue that he filed his assets and liabilities with the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) when filing in his nominations for the 2021 general elections, Kabimba said that was done before the President “became a member of parliament.”
“There is another piece of legislation, the ministerial code of conduct which requires you once you become a member of parliament you must file the list of your assets and liabilities in accordance with that piece of legislation, which he has not done,” said Kabimba. “This is important because if it is not done then future governments will have to go back to determine his financial status for the number of years that he would have been in the office, and to find out why he was not transparent about how poor he was or how rich he was when he was head of state. So we demand as Economic Front that the President must comply with that piece of legislation, not because he wants to but because the law demands so.”
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