By Mubanga Mubanga
PF deputy secretary general Brenda Nyirenda says she does not agree with the recently launched Corruption Perception Index (CPI) report indicating a reduction in corruption cases, because the vice has increased under the UPND government.
On Wednesday, Transparency International Zambia (TI-Z) released the CPI for 2024 which showed that Zambia had improved on the CPI score from 37 in 2023 to 39 in 2024, while on the ranking, Zambia moved from 92 to 98 out of 180 countries.
But in an interview yesterday, Nyirenda said she did not agree with the CPI findings because corruption under UPND had increased and decentralised.
She cited the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) where she said corruption was taking place.
“They can’t be going back and forth. The fact is, the CDF has actually increased corruption in this nation. It is being used as a channel to make cadres steal from innocent Zambians. So I do not agree. I totally disagree with that, because today, caderism has entered into all the council offices,” Nyirenda said. “Even so, it used to be at a central level. It has now even been decentralised. So corruption has been decentralised. So how can you say it has reduced? It means almost every consistency there are corrupt activities that are taking place which were not there before. Corruption maybe could have been happening at Central, and not where it has gone to every constituency.”
And Nyirenda also wondered how the same TI-Z which was saying CDF was a channel of corruption, could be the same ones saying corruption had reduced in the UPND government.
She said the recent audit on CDF which showed abuse of funds had also vindicated her, when she said it was a scam.
“I wasn’t just a prophet of doom. It proved what I said when I mentioned that it was a scam. This is what I talked about. What it is aimed for is not what is happening. So you find that projects will be delayed, but when they are delayed, they come back to the CDF committee so that they can be able to increase them,” Nyirenda said. “Classroom blocks that are supposed to be completed using K500, 000 or K600, 000 end up going to K1, 000,000. So isn’t that a scam? Me I had perceived it, I did a study about it through my constituency.”
