IMF directive on TAZAMA

By Daily Revelation Editor 

The Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have backed the government against the International Monetary Fund’s insistence to open up the TAZAMA pipeline to all the OMCs as opposed to just a few of those with  interest to those in power.

However, Harry Kalaba, the Citizens First leader has argued that the IMF intervened to stop the UPND corruption at the TAZAMA pipeline, and warned that if they did not follow the IMF directive, he would write a strongly worded letter to President Hakainde Hichilema and send it also to the international community as well.

Recently, impeccable sources in the UPND administration told Daily Revelation that during the series of meetings the multinational body had with senior government officials recently, they queried why the pipeline was only being accessed by a few companies such as Sahara Energy, Vito-Agro, a partnership between Vito and Shashi Patel’s Agro Fuels, and Mount Meru among a few others.

Sources said the IMF threatened to even impose some sanctions if the pipeline were not opened to all the stakeholders.

Energy permanent secretary Peter Mumba in giving government’s position said the IMF simply queried government on why they had not effected what they had earlier stated to open up the pipeline.

“So IMF simply said ‘yes, we support this one.’ But because of certain problems that we were facing we couldn’t actualise the open access. So that’s why the IMF came and said ‘government you had promised that this is the way forward, why haven’t you actualised this?'” said Mumba. “And they made it to be a benchmark in the structural adjustment programme.”

He explained that the ones who had been supplying were reliable suppliers as the others who had been tried had failed to deliver after being contracted.

Of course, OMCs president Dr Kafula Mubanga’s assertions that the IMF were speaking for the international corporations who went to complain to them to have greater access to the pipeline cannot be discounted. After all, everybody knows that the IMF does not act in the interest of nations like Zambia even when they claim to help out. Their record in Zambia and other developing nations has been very poor to say the least.

But it can also not be discounted that some of the companies being mentioned to have received preferential treatment are known to have very close connections to very powerful people in power, and could actually be benefiting on account of the same association. The concern about such preferential treatment of some companies has not been raised by the IMF alone, as stakeholders within Zambia have been raising the same alarm.

Some government officials have actually been reported to the ACC and the judiciary for allegedly single sourcing some of the companies involved. The ACC have announced to the public that they had launched investigations against some of the companies being mentioned to be benefiting. We wonder why up to now they have not announced progress on the same. We demand that the ACC must tell Zambians on how far they have gone in the investigations.

Therefore, when it comes to corruption, nothing about this administration can be ruled out. This actually ranks among the most corrupt administrations. The fact that people have not seen arrests of government officials, despite the ACC announcing probes is because State House has impeded such investigations, with those at the ACC being their usual spineless wimps who are more interested in keeping their job than the most sacred duty they have been called to fullfil.